


30 Days of a More Profound Bond

by Attic_Nights



Category: Pushing Daisies, Supernatural
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Anal Sex, Angel!Castiel, Animal Transformation, Anime, Bees, Canon-Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Crack, Cuddling, Dancing, Demon!Dean, Egyptian Gods, End!verse, Episode: s05e03 Free to Be You and Me, Episode: s05e04 The End, Episode: s05e08 Changing Channels, Episode: s06e15 The French Mistake, Established Relationship, First Time, Frottage, Genderbending, Holding Hands, Human!Castiel - Freeform, Impotence, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Picnics, Pushing Daisies xover is in chapter 27 only, Rimming, Sex Curse, Spooning, Time Travel, Various Ratings, Various universes, WAS canon compliant before season 10, adventures of real sex, all our friends are dead, and fluff, attempts at humor, cosplaying, gender swap, hindu gods, human!dean, meta!madness, parenthood of sorts, season nine, see individual chapters for ratings and themes, wee!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 37,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attic_Nights/pseuds/Attic_Nights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirty individual stories in thirty chapters. All days can be read as separate, stand-alone tales.</p><p><span class="u">Day 30:</span> "Doing something Ridiculous"<br/>It's the year 2078, and aged!Dean does something ridiculous. Forever!young Castiel literally can't even. A story about sunflowers and acceptance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 01 - Holding Hands, Teen

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [my tumblr.](http://attic-nights.tumblr.com/tagged/30-day-otp-challenge)
> 
> Written in the 2014 hiatus, this collection of ficlets remains canon compliant to the end of season 9.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Day One. All prompts are part of the [30 Day OTP Challange](http://30dayotpchallenge.deviantart.com/journal/30-Day-OTP-Challenge-LIST-325248585)
> 
> Summary: Dean holds Castiel's hand for the first time. But it doesn't count.  
> (They slip to face each other— scant inches from each others’ lips, and stop like they were never going any further.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated teen for _language_. Written with an experimental style; I paid particular (yet haphazard) attention to word sounds. That said, if you don't like the writing style here, go to a different Day; I regularly shake things up, since this whole thing was an exercise in writing. Also, Raising a Baby Together is one of my favorite Days.

Everything that has a first time, also has a last time. This has been Dean Winchester’s mantra for some thirty-odd years.

So, when Dean Winchester, “high school dropout and apocalypse starter”, holds Castiel “Chrysler Building in a trench coat’s” hand, it doesn’t really count.

Besides, hand holding is for cheesy rom-com crap, where the chick and the dude look over some pretty foreign river in the middle of a star-lit city and do soul-bonding garbage. And Dean can’t remember the last time he held someone’s hand— and two dudes don’t just hold hands, even if when in their very presence they do feel warm and welcomed despite the blood under their nails and grit in their teeth.

Holding Castiel’s hand doesn’t really count because they’re in a dingy motel room, Highway Nowhere, with the slick of blood on their coats and taste of mothballs in their throats. Sam’s out cold on the twin, rocked to sleep with Magic Fingers’ patent lullaby. He’s been dead to the world since his bung shoulder slipped from out to in again, and Dean cannot help but want to join him in the dreamless deep.

So they’re dirty and smell like rotting meat, the buzz of adrenaline gone and leaving them weak; half dead as their socked feet hit carpet like end credits. Dean stares at Castiel’s stockinged feet, where the thread is worn, fragile and thin.

And he’s feeling like his world’s been rocked because the dude… has feet. He wonders what else he has, and he lets the mood fly because his mind is tired and his thoughts spin awry.

The sense of finality he felt before lingers as Cas stays. He’s been doing that a lot. Lingering, staying. Castiel looks as immaculate as he does scruffy, like he crawled out of a two-dime fluffy dryer. The guy’s like gravity, an object spinning faster than the earth and holding so much weight that he doesn’t… actually seem to change. Yet when he sprawls out on Dean’s bed (Dean’s bed, Dean’s bed), it’s a reminder of how much things have changed, and how much is on Dean’s weary head.

He looks at the fallen man, wary, as he peels off his leather layers and lingers by the angel’s quietly outstretched fingers, swallowing. The guy has feet, he has hands, and he has a whole lot of indefinable shit between them. They haven’t talked about this, because there’s nothing to miss. He can either wallow or follow, he decides as he uncocks his gun to place on the drawers. Castiel’s hand pauses; he waits patiently.

It’s there, an offer as golden as the sun, and just as dangerous. He falls because that’s what he’s good at— not flying, not staying alive… just falling. Down and down and down.

He kicks up his heels as their hands meet, warm and dry with motel soap and lint as he buries himself under the sheets.

They slip to face each other— scant inches from each others’ lips, and they stop like they were never going any further.

Castiel looks at him in that way he always does, with his eyes deep as the holes in his jeans and his eyebrows curled together… like he thinks that a man as flawed as Dean can unravel the world. It should make him feel powerful, he knows, but what flows is something that’s humbled.

Dean Winchester hates that holding hands with an angel reeks with rightness and finality. Like it has an end. It’s like connecting with the elements, seeping pure white lightning so frightening but so… sullied. Not fallen but dragged down and down and deep into the mud, spoiled and weak. So that first time they hold hands doesn’t count, because he thinks, nay knows…

As surely as heaven above, that though this may be love, it will never… happen… again. There is no first time, there will be no second time. There is no bed and breakfast in Vermont, no uplifting four-chord music, fat Italian singers and falling snow, just… so long as there’s a beginning there’ll be an end too. This, he knows. That never changes.

That’s why holding Castiel’s hand can’t be the first time, because then it’s the fucking last time he’ll twine his fingers together with another man and pretend it doesn’t count as they spin towards the world’s. fucking. end. He deserves no more, and Cas deserves no less.

The tightness of Castiel’s hand keeps as he falls asleep. Dean Winchester doesn’t know this, so holding hands especially doesn’t count because Cas’ not there in the morning. It’s a cold bed and maybe it’s for the best, so there’s no hearts adorning their fucking breast or bite marks on their chest, either.

But then Castiel blows in with the cold dawn breeze, trench flapping like a goddamn cape as he clutches a tray of coffee and a bag of something sweet. Sam thumps about like he’s putting all his aches into sounds as he makes his morning rounds.

But as Dean sits quietly next to Cas, he finds himself falling to gravity— grabs his coffee with one hand and Castiel with the other. Cas’ hand is iced from the cool, cruel world, but his eyes are deep and cling like his fingers do as he keeps his hold on Dean like he never means to let go.

He won’t count this as a first time for hand-holding either, he supposes as their hands linger too hot and cold.

Because everything that has a first time, also has a last time. This is Dean Winchester’s fucking mantra. A beginning has an end. He’d never know when that last time arrives until it’s too late to be made important, lingering. It could easily be mere a squeeze before battle or a helping hand to raise him from the deep and then he’ll spend sleepless nights wondering why he couldn’t have made it more fucking poignant.

So he sits there curled around a cup of caffeine and angel in the hopes that he’s won, pretending to not know it as a beginning, because then this fucking profound crap that somehow means everything? Might just last if it never starts.

Because this— well, Dean wants it to last.


	2. Day 02- Cuddling Somewhere, Teen/General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief foray into cuddles

On a good day, Dean Winchester might admit he’s in the closet for several things, but he’ll never tell anyone that there’s a skeleton in there innocuously labelled: ‘I am a closet cuddler’.

He wouldn’t say he was touch-starved, per se. There are the slaps on the shoulders, pats on the back, the occasional hug, and the too-often awkward times when Cas lands too close. Sometimes Dean falls asleep dreamlessly on the couch, only to wake up with Cas sitting there patiently, his shoulder marked by an embarrassingly wet pile of drool. In his younger years, Dean would share beds with Sam under the guise of soothing his baby brother’s nightmares. He never let out that it soothed his, too.

Cuddling offered protection like nothing else. That close you knew exactly where the strange noises came from when they pulled you from sleep. That close, you can tell immediately that the other was still there; breathing, heat thrumming, and beautifully alive. You could leap from bed together in an instant if in danger, or pull yourself over them to offer protection from the shadows and shrapnel.

Most days, Dean didn’t get to cuddle.

But then there are days when the bed dips and there’s Castiel, slipping in behind him. On those days he sighs as strong hands pull Dean snugly into the curves of the whip-cord body, warm and welcoming as the winter sun.

Dean loved being cuddled, but that was okay, since Cas was a closet cuddler too.


	3. Day 03- Watching a Movie, Teen/General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Metatron, Dean's keen to point out the difference between knowledge and experience. So they watch _Star Wars_ , but Castiel has trouble concentrating.

The winter evening is growing cool with the setting sun, the air sharp with snow and sleet, and Dean and Castiel are arguing. Dean shuts the door on the cold, golden sunset and marches Castiel down the bunker’s entrance, both of them bowed down with groceries. They make it to the kitchen and unload before reaching the crux of the matter.

"You’re telling me you know _Star Wars_ — all about it, in fact— but never actually _watched_ it?” Dean’s staring, eyes wide and hands gesticulating wildly. Castiel cocks his head, hoping the cranial imbalance might drain out the bone-deep tiredness that permeates his mortal coil.

“Cas, that’s like reading IMDb spoilers from the forums, or being an expert on cheeseburgers and not eating any.”

"Dean,” Cas sighs. “I don’t see how this is relevant." Castiel couldn’t, there were so many things vying for attention. Dean was transformed, heaven was splintered, hell was complicated, Castiel was dying, and he couldn’t bear the hurt that his death would bring Dean. Why would it matter whether if he saw a fictional space story unfold?

"Oh, it’s relevant," Dean continues, shaking his head. " _Star Wars_ is not a _thing_ you can know; it’s an Experience.”

Acquiescing, Castiel smiles indulgently at Dean, whose eyes flicker down to his lips and then off to the side.

They wind up under a blanket on the couch, Dean grouching at the cold feet Castiel's got wedged under his thighs, snug while the opening credits play.

As the movie unfolds Castiel finds his eyes drifting back to Dean’s face, gauging his reactions and enjoying the way his whole being lights up at the escapades of the protagonists. There’s a warm feeling in his gut when Dean’s hand finds his and their fingers entwine. He brushes his lips over Dean’s knuckles, and then buries himself into Dean’s side.

He realises then that Metatron was wrong, and Dean was right. He doesn’t know why it should surprise him, since the one constant in his life with Dean was that the man would always surprise him. Would continue to surprise him. The thought is comforting, he thinks as he watches the glow from the television dapples Dean like a lead-lighted church window.

Dean’s wrists are dappled with freckles. They are fragile in the grand scheme of things—made of cancellous tissue and compact bone, and yet are able to topple armies. They were just as he had remade them all those years ago, and yet more. Knowing of something is only part of it, he realizes. He knew of Dean, had his “spoilers” divulged like wartime secrets, but that could not prepare him for the experience that came with understanding —or attempting to— the righteous man.

“Whaddya looking at?” asks Dean, eyes flicking black for a moment.

 “Wookie,” he muses, mind extrapolating on handcuffs and experiences.

Dean narrows his eyes, not getting the reference for once, and Castiel looks forward to the continued experience.

After the films, of course.


	4. Day 04- On a Date, G

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel travels back in time and meets a six-year-old Dean. He learns a few things.

_1985— Blue Earth, Minnesota._

As the Cotton Candy Man chases Dean, he thinks this might just be the end of him. His breath comes as quick, short gasps as his legs weave him adeptly through the crowd. He manages to duck between the fortune-teller’s tent and the bearded lady’s tent before he collides into somebody. Hard.

“Oof!” he exclaims as the air is pushed from him. Whoever his path-blocker is, they are as solid as a horse, and he winds up on his bum from the impact. He rubs it with a pout.

He spares a look at the person he ran into, who looks both confused and unaffected. The Path Blocker cocks his head and mutters curiously, as if tasting every word: “Smells like 1985.”

Dean wrinkles his nose. “More like manure,” he corrects. Dean shoots Path Blocker a deserved glare before assessing the damage.

His pink, sticky cloud of cotton candy is now caked with dirt and mud, bits of grass sticking in it like moldy salad. He looks at the ruined cotton candy forlornly. He had only wanted a handful- it wasn’t his fault the whole mountain of it had clung onto his hand when he reached into the machine to drag some out. 

 _Now,_ he thought gloomily, _his belly would continue to rumble._ Sometimes he really thought he had a ravenous beast inside of him. He had asked Dad if there was such a monster, and if he could kill it, but Dad had barked out a laugh and told him to hurry up and wash the monster-goop from the Impala before anyone could see it.

The sound of running footsteps closing in snapped him back to the present. With a quick manoeuvre, he seizes the ruined globs of pink tastiness and slides behind the large, tan trench coat of Path Blocker. He hides himself behind the coat and suited figure as best he can.

The tell-tale wheeze of too many cheeseburgers now echoed in the narrow corridor between the tents. Dean holds his breath.

There is a terrible silence. Long seconds crawl by as Dean waits for Path Blocker to step aside and reveal him to the Cotton Candy Man. Finally, the Cotton Candy Man speaks.

“Yer see a boy run down ‘ere?” says he, cheeseburger-breath spewing into the silence.

Dean realizes his fingers are clenched around the left calf of Path-Blocker, and quickly releases them their grip as if they were burned.

“No,” replies Path Blocker in a deep grumble. Then he adds rather sternly: “I don’t believe it’s proper procedure to chase hungry children.”

There’s silence for a few moments, and then there are the sounds of Cotton Candy Man making a stormy yet subdued retreat.

Dean blinks as his savior turns around and cocks his head, blue eyes squinting. Dean does as he was taught.

“Dean Winchester,” he says, thrusting out his hand.

Path-blocker looks at him for a few seconds, doing a weird squint-blink thing, before taking Dean’s hand in a warm yet firm grip. Dean smiles encouragingly.

“You call me… can call me Cas,” says the man.

“Don’tcha have a last name?”

Cas’ eyes turn skywards for a moment. “No.”

“Oh,” replies Dean. Because that’s cool, too. Like Batman, or something.

Cas is still looking at him strangely, so Dean takes the opportunity to scope him. He was older than Dean, and not armed, unlike Dean. Dean’s instincts also told him Cas wasn’t a monster. He smelled of a thunderstorm, and wore an overgrown suit and coat that seemed both clean and scruffy. It made him look harmless. If it weren’t for the solidness of his body and his deep gruff voice, Dean would think Cas _was_ harmless. Mostly harmless, then. He likes that. Dean Winchester arrives at a conclusion.

“I like you,” Dean announces, truthfully.

Cas inclines his head. “And I you, Dean.”

Cas takes his hands, and with gentle movements, he helps him un-stick the solidifying masses of sugar. Dean would normally brush off the help, but this stuff was harder to get rid of than sticky-tape.

“What are you doing here?” Cas asks, then clarifies: “It doesn’t seem like a fun place.”

Dean shrugs. It _was_ kind of dull. Going to circus on the local playing field had seemed like a great idea at the time. Especially since he was meant to be helping Sam and Pastor Jim sort out the storage room right now. They hadn’t even noticed him slip out, but now he was thinking maybe he should have stayed. He was hungry and hot, the sun blistering and the wind whipped cruelly.

He tries to think of what he could do to make things funner. He balls up his fists and looks at Cas’ backwards tie. It’s almost the color of Cas’ eyes, but not quite.

“Can this be a date?” he asks him.

Cas cocks his head. He does that often, Dean notices.

“How old are you, Dean?”

Dean’s eyes shoot off to the side. “Ten.”

“You’re six.”

So Cas can tell when he lies. That’s okay, since Dean figures he wouldn’t want to date someone he could lie to. Dean nods, confirming Cas’ assessment.

“Do you want this to be a ‘date’?” Cas asks in a slow, deep voice. It sounds so very much like Batman’s voice from the early morning cartoons he watches while feeding Sammy.

While thinking of an answer, Dean scuffs the toe of his shoe on a dirtied clump of grass. The older girls from Pastor Jim’s congregation had talked about going on dates. He had pretended to be older than he was, and hung outside with them while the parents gossiped inside. They had laughed when he admitted he had never been on a date.

“Never? That’s so lame!” Red-hair Nancy had squealed.

Dean’s face had flushed hot as they then turned their bodies to block him from the group.

“Jason from the cinema took me on his bicycle. He’s older, so he can _drive_ one on the road _,”_ Curly-hair Sue had explained, Texan vowels accenting her speech, and the other girls had cooed over her as Dean retreated inside the church.

In the present, Dean looks at Cas with a considering eye. He was older.

“Can _you_ drive on the road?”

“I have been taught the basics, and I understand the mechanics behind operating a vehicle,” answers Cas.

Dean nods. A car was way cooler than knowing how to ride a bike. “Yeah. I want to be your date. If you do, too, I mean.”

“As you wish.”

Cas is still looking at him curiously, so Dean rolls his eyes. “That means we hold hands, doofus.”

“I see,” says Cas, but it is clear he doesn’t seem to know much more about this whole dating thing than Dean does.

“Come on,” Dean says instead. “Let’s go and get a corndog.”

He takes Cas’ hand and leads him to the Corndog Stall, which was far enough away from the Cotton Candy Stall to be safe. He orders two corndogs for them, and prods Cas when the man holds out his hand for the money. Cas just looks confused at the vendor, so Dean rolls his eyes and picks his pocket very obviously. He doesn’t want his new friend— _date_ —to think he’s a freak or a bad guy. He pulls a couple of dollars from the wallet, catching sight of his new friend’s ID.

Dean keeps looking at it, not minding if it’s rude, as Cas takes the food and collects the change. He frowns; the name on the ID didn’t say “Cas”. It started with a “J” which made a “dgeh” noise, not a “keh” one. It reminded Dean of Dad’s ID’s.

“Are you a hunter?” he whispers loudly, trading the wallet for the proffered corndog. Cas takes his wallet and looks down, a soft smile playing on his lips.

“I hope to be,” he confesses in a low rumble. Dean fancies those lips would part and out would shoot bright white lightning bolts.

“Me too!”

“You’ll be the greatest hunter, one day,” Cas says, face serious.

Dean ducks his head because he knows that while that would never happen, he didn’t want to upset his date by saying otherwise.

He sees that Cas is yet to take a bite from his corndog, so gestures for him to take the first bite. Cas frowns at the corndog as if he didn’t understand it, then _licks_ it.

Dean can’t stop the laughter which bubbles up. “Dude! It’s not a lollypop! You eat it. Here, like this—” Dean demonstrates by taking the biggest bite he can from his own corndog.

Cas nods sagely before mimicking Dean’s actions. A look of pure bliss clouds over his features.

“You like it?” asks Dean smugly around a mouthful.

“It is… satisfactory,” replies Cas with a twinkle in his eye.

By the time they finish, they have wandered over to the sideshow games. Dean looks at the air rifle range, then at the giant toy guinea pig. It was heaps bigger than a real guinea pig, perhaps taller than Dean himself, with a hard black nose and glittering amber eyes. It was unusual and weird, different to the usual dog, bear and lion big prizes. Sam would love that, he was weird that way, and even if they couldn’t keep it maybe Pastor Jim could look after it for them. Making his mind up, Dean tugs on Cas’ sleeve and pulls him to the front. The carnie greets them with a low bow, his long blue hair touching the counter as he does so.

“Try your luck at a game of skill and precision! Are you worthy, dear sirs? Fifty cents for one game, a dollar for three.” The man whirls over to the yellow metal duck targets, explaining the rules. “Hit more than two ducks in a game, and you will win a rainbow slinky! Do the same for a second game—and you win a funny hat!”

The man stops to gesture to these prizes. Then, he pauses dramatically, his small dark eyes catching Dean’s. “But if you want to shoot big, don’t take those prizes. I can see you’re a sharp-eyed, smart young man. If you hit all four ducks in all three games, you my friend will be the honorable owner of a genuine luxury giant toy guinea pig.”

This time Cas is quick to get out his wallet, paying the man $1. The man pockets the cash and hits a lever, sending the ducks into motion.

Dean picks up the air rifle, feeling its weight. He looks through the sight, and finds it wrong, so uses his own judgement to line up the shots.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Go the four ducks as they are knocked over.

“Do you want to take the slinky or try for the BIG prize?” prompts the carnie. Dean shoots him a look and the carnie huffs in amusement. Dean grins as he resets the game.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

Dean lines up the last shot, but squeezes the trigger a moment too late. The duck stands, his shot wasted. A crushing wave of disappointment washes over him. He’d failed!

He sets the gun down, ready to walk away but Cas stops him with a solid hand to his shoulder. He watches blankly as Cas hands over more money holds the gun out for him. Dean shakes his head minutely, swallowing. Cas stares at the gun then for a few moments, as if weighing possibilities in his mind. Finally, the gun is lifted to Cas’ shoulder and he takes aim.

Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

“A good man taught me how to shoot,” explains Cas, his eyes deep and sincere like the holes in Dean’s jeans as he holds out the gun again. Dean looks at the carnie, who is eying Cas with a hungry look.

“Not married then?” drawls the carnie.

“I don’t see—” starts Cas, but is halted by Dean’s rapid movement.

A hot feeling in his gut makes Dean scowl at the carnie and grab the gun from Cas, eager to please his date again. He couldn’t fail this time, he wouldn’t fail. He squeezes the trigger.

The ducks all fall. Dean stares at them for a moment, uncomprehending, before his vision is blocked by something large and fuzzy. Dimly, he hears the annoying carnie shouting through the roaring in his ears, but all he can see is the plush grey and white fur of the guinea pig. He reaches out and touches it, and it’s softer than anything he can remember. Even softer than Sammy’s baby hair when it needs a haircut.

Reverently, Dean lifts the soft toy. It’s so large he has to lean backwards to stop it from dragging on the bare ground. He manages a few steps.

“Well done, Dean.” The sentence pierces through the din like lightning in a storm. Dean pauses, looking up at Cas’ shadowed face, hair haloed by the midday sun, and waits for a rebuke. But it never comes.

“That was excellent marksmanship. I would be proud to be able to shoot like that,” continues Cas.

Dean resists the urge to bury his face in the guinea pig, but still ends up squeezing it tight.

“’m not as good as you,” he mumbles through the guinea pig’s right ear.

To his surprise, Cas squints at him. “I disagree. Shooting is not my forte, but you are so good at it, it might be yours.”

“What is your ‘forte’?” asks Dean, unsure what the word means.

Cas’ lips twitch as they amble towards the ice cream truck. “Blades.” He pauses. “Though I think swords would be a good approximate for my blade, rather than a short knife.”

As Cas orders them both ice cream (choosing Dean’s favorite, raspberry, without even asking), Dean entertains a fantasy of Cas in full Batman suit, fighting Catwoman with a long, silver sword. In his mind, Cas moves like a ninja and swoops like an angel rather than a bat.

They wind up sneaking in the Big Top tent near the back, a show apparently just starting. Dean carefully sets the guinea pig down on the bench seat next to him, and takes his ice cream. Cas lets Dean hold his hand while the clowns tumble about the stage.

He takes a moment to make sure Cas is eating the ice cream correctly. He eats too slowly, pistachio flavor running down the cone, but he licks it instead of biting it, so Dean can’t really fault him for that.

The rest of the day passes far too quickly. He finds out that Cas likes apple-bobbing, loves the merry-go-round, but hates the Ferris wheel. That was okay, since Dean finds he hates the Ferris wheel too, and they end up looking at each other rather than the ground as they swing in the fragile metal box.

By the time the sun starts to set, Cas walks him out the gates and along the cracked, weed-riddled footpath back to Pastor Jim’s. He is a ‘perfect gentleman’ as the girls would say. Dean isn’t too sure what that is exactly, but he has a feeling it is what Cas is. He even takes the guinea pig from Dean so he can eat his popcorn. Dean doesn’t mind that; his arms were getting tired and the popcorn had smelled so _good._ They chat about many things, but as Pastor Jim’s cottage looms into view, Dean finds himself quietened.

“What’s the matter, Dean?” asks Cas, noticing the silence hanging heavy between them.

Dean shrugs and stops a few doors down from the church. He sits on the curb and stares at his dirt-rimmed nails. “Can we go back?” he asks, head down. He feels Cas sit down next to him.

“The circus is closed.”

“I know, but…” Dean struggles to find a way to explain that he doesn’t want the day to end. Cas seems to understand this.

“We will see each other again.”

“Promise?”

“On pain of death,” Cas swears. Dean holds out his pinky, and after a moment, Cas takes it, making the vow unbreakable.

Dean’s feeling better now, but his heart sinks again when he sees the guinea pig. He realizes then that Pastor Jim would know where he’d been, and while he wouldn’t yell like Dad, he would be disappointed. When Pastor Jim was disappointed, it made his face hot and his chest hurt.

“Take the guinea pig,” decides Dean.

“But it’s yours.” Cas sounds confused at the command.

Dean shrugs, putting his whole body into it. “You’re my date. Dates are meant to give each other stuff,” he says, hoping it’s true.

Cas takes his knowledge and considers it with a small smile. “That means I have to give you something back,” he says.

Dean’s eyes open wide. “Y-you d-don’t have to,” he stammers, wanting more than anything to have something, but Dad would _never_ allow it.

Cas scratches under his collar. “It’s no hardship,” he says.

Dean watches, amazed, as Cas gives him a long black feather. He takes it gently, watching as the setting sun catches the feather and a thousand colors glitter in a filigree rainbow, the very tip of it a deep, dark chalky blue. It’s as long as his arm, and when he takes it by the pointy bit, it feels strong.

“Thank you, Cas,” he whispers, awe-struck.

Cas’ eyes sparkle, a warm smile on his face. “You’re welcome, Dean.”

Cas’ mouth opens again, but before he can say anything, Dean blinks and he disappears.

Dean jumps up, looking wildly about for his date. “Cas!” he shouts.

“Cas!”

Eventually, Pastor Jim finds him at the cottage door, eyes wet, covered in cold sweat, and clutching a long feather to his chest.

—-

_Present Day—Lebanon, Kansas._

Dean rounds a corner and rams into a bewildered-looking Cas.

“What the hell, man?” he manages, picking himself off of the hard bunker floor.

Cas doesn’t answer, choosing instead to pivot, open the door he’d just come out of, and peer inside.

“It appears to be a broom closet, now,” he assesses quite seriously.

Something in the phrasing brings Dean up short. He notices a large stuffed guinea pig clutched in Cas’ arms, and feels a frisson of memory shudder through him. His cheeks grow hot as he stares into its familiar glittering amber eyes.

“I repeat. What the hell man?”

_—_

_Bonus_ :

(“Oh my god, this is so embarrassing.”

“You were adorable, Dean.” Castiel smirks, kissing Dean’s jaw. “ _Are adorable.”_

Dean just pulls away from his boyfriend with a disbelieving grunt and buries his face in the proffered stuffed guinea pig.)


	5. Day 05- Kissing, Teen/General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A forever-young Castiel stays with an aged Dean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (why can't they both be immortal at the same time? *throws feels up in the air and walks away* )

Dean's got two steaming mugs of coffee on this early April morning, looking forward to getting some heat into his bones, only to find Cas knitting by an already lit fireside, a crocheted shawl encroaching from the couch onto his shoulders. The hearth crackles joyously; it and the clack of the knitting needles are the only sounds in the living room-- the _Yellow Submarine_ record that had awoken Dean to a cold, empty bed was long since finished. Dean finds his mouth smiling even as he begins to worm out a frown.

“What the hell, man?” he grumbles, as he sets Cas’ favorite mug down on the teak table beside him.

Cas gives a happy-sounding _hrrm?_ and looks up.

Dean’s breath catches as the orange glow from the fire caresses Cas’ youthful features, haloing his thick, dark hair in gold. He is struck by the often-felt wonder that comes with loving and being loved by such a fantastic, impossible creature.

Oh right. Frowning.

The local townsfolk have their legends about the two of them. This was partly due to Cas being so adamant and fucking earnest regarding their relationship; they couldn’t hide away under the guise of old man and carer, nephew and uncle, or grandson and grandfather. Oh no, they were the local token gay husbands with an age gap wider than the Grand fucking Canyon.

But instead of somehow fueling and perpetuating stereotypes of homosexuality and homophobia, they were, for the most part, left alone.

Of course, children would often hide under the rhododendrons and parsley in the side garden, eager to catch a glimpse of them. Sam was most amused by this, and whenever he popped around would relay their whispered stories of the old man and his cybernetic husband, the old man and his wizard husband, or the old man and his guardian angel. They were all intricate and varied in the way that only urban legends could be, evolving in hushed, excited tones from rosy, excited minds.  

Dean pretended to like the story where he was Benjamin Button the best (because dude, that made him Brad Pitt), but _really_ he enjoyed the variations on him having an angelic husband. Not because it was the most true, but because it was—as Cas would say—the most profound legend.

So him and Cas were the local urban legend. And that was fucking awesome.

It meant they were a mystery. Yet the gossip was never malicious—a fact that Dean was initially wary of, but had come to accept over the years. This left him free to drop clues like tasty morsels to the hungry locals.

He loved calling Cas “his angel” and watching the children and old folk titter as he grudgingly accepted chaste, stubble-catching kisses from his lover as they watched the local production of _Thoroughly Modern Millie_ on uncomfortable plastic seats.

He loved it when Cas would hold his hand during the Sunday farmer’s markets. His hands would be warm and soft, strong and unassuming in his own arthritic grip as they surveyed the quality of apples this year _._

He always made a game of pretending to be embarrassed whenever Cas would bend over the small oak tables in the _Chapel—_ the local café—and kiss the latte froth from his lips. Dean would accept the brief lip-lock, feeling like his soul was being consumed alongside the milk froth as their lips slid together. Yeah, he liked having lattes now.

Some days, if his mind was feeling crafty enough, he would pull Cas behind the yew tree during their daily amble around their sprawling gardens. Cas would let himself be pulled, and Dean would back him up to the old tree trunk and kiss him, pretending he were a young man again, stealing romance from his angel in a love-shunned age.

It’s times like these when he damn near misses the apocalypse—he can still remember the first time they kissed, shyly electric, hidden in a garden gone to seed behind an abandoned house. Cas had tasted like beer and thunder and pecan pie, but had kissed like some weird hybrid between a rose flower and a Venus fly trap. Even back then he was smitten. But back then, the hickies on his neck would heal fast, and gripping his lover tight never resulted in his fingers locking firmly and suddenly in place.

Now, Cas had to ease his painful grip apart, loving, healing hands massaging his joints. His angel helped him out of bed most mornings, up from the floor whenever he decided to do the plumbing or wiring by himself… and always pulled him up into a warm, encompassing kiss.

Dean is soothed by Cas’ never-ending kisses. They’ll never stop—whenever Dean gets into a strop about his age and _dying_ Cas reassures him with a wry quirk of his lips that he’ll see him “On the flip side.”

So, still in the living room, Dean sets his own mug of black coffee on the teak table next to Cas’, and straightens. He looks at his lover’s discarded knitting, green wool almost yellow in this firelight, finds the frisson of annoyance and clings to it.

“Why do you have to act so old?” he grouches.

“Why do you have to act so young?” quips Cas.

“Yeah, but… _knitting?”_

“Our grand-nephew shall never get cold feet.” He holds up the nearly-finished booties in question.

“Knitting is such an old folk thing, Cas.”

Cas understands the underlying argument. “I’m older than you, Dean.”

Dean huffs out a dry laugh. “Yeah, all right, Dorian Grey.” Cas takes a sip of coffee, waiting. Dean shifts, looking down briefly at Cas’ knees. “Next time, open the living room doors when you light the fire? Bed was fucking freezing without you.”

Cas smiles wide, his blue eyes clear and sparkling. “I can knit you booties, too,” he suggests.

Dean rolls his eyes, because what else is there to do?

He eases himself down on the couch armrest beside Cas, ignoring the way the barely-padded frame dug into his bony ass. With a creak of his bones, he slides a weathered hand behind his angel’s neck, and pulls him into a kiss.


	6. Day 06- Wearing Each Others’ Clothes, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Sam sees more than he wants.)

Sam Winchester likes to think he’s pretty observant.

It sort of comes with the job description and the whole _keeping alive_ business (except for that one time he died with the knife in his back. Still, his deaths could hardly be said to be caused by him not paying attention.)

He first notices something’s amiss one early, Saturday morning. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, shoveling in the good old scrambled protein, and Cas walks in naked.

Wait, step back. He wasn’t _actually_ naked, but he might well have been.

It only takes Sam a moment to take in the sight of Castiel _sans_ creeper coat and cheap suit. In a small, irrational part of Sam’s mind, he had thought Cas and the trench were one, stitched in together and inseparable. He’d died in that outfit, and it had resurrected along with him. Thrice.

And yet, in their seemingly inimitable place are a holy ACDC shit and inside-out heliotrope boxers. In that (thankfully) brief moment, Sam’s brain catches up and his eyes snap back to his glorious scrambled eggs and bacon.

Cas, for all its worth, just mutters a greeting and putters about as if roaming about the kitchen was something he usually did in his underwear.

Cas is looking searchingly at a whisk when Sam finishes his plate. He takes a big breath, brain feeling oxygen-deprived.

“So, no trench today?” he asks as nonchalantly as possible.

Cas _hmms,_ and moves onto the kitchamajig, _ping-_ ing it back and forth. “It’s in the wash,” he offers.

Sam breaths an “Oh” and excuses himself as a niggling thought points out that the t-shirt Cas wore belonged to his brother. Sam Winchester pauses, shakes himself, and thinks about setting up a working translation for the definitive book on selkies.

—

The second time he notices something’s… _odd,_ he legitimately feels like he’s having a heart attack.

He stares at Dean, coffee spilling between his fingers from his forgotten cup, and tries to remember. how. to. breathe.

Dean frowns at him and asks if he’s okay.

Sam can only blink. “That’s Cas’ coat!” he says by way of explanation.

Dean looks down at his trench-coated form, and brushes his fingers down the lapels.

“So?” Dean asks.

So? So get this! That was Cas’. No, it _was_ Cas. It was an inseparable part of him and Dean wearing it was like Dean _wearing_ Cas and he’s now like _inside_ Cas _—_

“Fuck!” Sam says, and walks out.  

—

Yeah, yeah. So maybe he’s not the most observant person, but he’s still pretty up there, he thinks.

Now that he’s _noticed_ , it’s damned hard to _un-_ notice.

He’s given up trying to show his support—apparently Dean takes offense at Sam’s efforts to get him and Cas onto the local LGBTIQA support group. He’ll just pretend there’s a hunt at the Gay Pride Parade, is all.

So now that he’s _noticed_ , in a way he’s glad he worked it out on his own.

But some things? Let’s just say there are certain sights he should never have to observe.

—-

 _Outtake Bonus_ :

“Urgh!” Sam screams, dropping his finished mug. “My eyes!”

“Ow!”  shouts Dean, arms tied in front with Cas’ tie. “Watch the dick!”

“Watch the whisk!” commands Cas, bedecked in Dean’s leather jacket.

“Oh my _god!”_ moans Kevin suddenly from the other doorway, and he thumps his head against the door frame.


	7. Day 07- Cosplaying, Explicit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie's insistent, Cas tastes like strawberries, and Sam is needing therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first story that is Explicit. So yes indeedy, it contains a sex scene! For a non-explicit, teen/general rated version, please visit [the original post on my tumblr](http://attic-nights.tumblr.com/post/90900377943/30-day-otp-challenge-day-7-kissing-destiel-teen).
> 
> I've also noticed I accidentally shifted tense part way through (and not just for the flashbacks.) Which, annoying as it is, I've tried fixing them up, but it's late and I must ask you to excuse any remaining errors as you read :) Incidentally, the format is screwing around with this chapter too, so the same goes for that.

Perhaps it was not the best idea leaving Charlie to hook them up with costumes so they could go undercover at Comic Con. They were to investigate a haunting, not to voluntarily experience what it’s like to die from asphyxiation before they’d even _got there._  


This is Dean’s thought process as he tries to squeeze his obviously too-large legs into the pants. He grumbles as he adds more baby powder to the rubber trouser leg and inches it up his thighs, painfully slowly. He briefly casts a thoughtful look at the lube beside the bed, but ultimately decides against it.  


Dean had been happy to suggest he and Cas dress as either their Winchester gospel selves or as agents, but then Cas had said it would please him “to participate in the cosplaying traditions of fandom.” And since Sam’s Rapunzel hair wasn’t FBI regulation-length, he’d claimed he would be doing the research while he and Cas did the legwork. Froofy bastard.  


Plus, Charlie was insistent. Where he once agreed with thought the idea of cosplaying, when Sam had filled her in she became fucking ecstatic at the idea. At times like these, she really was the annoying sister he never wanted.  


Forty minutes later, weary and baby-powdered, Dean emerges triumphant amidst the rubber. He casts bleary eyes on his reflection in the full length mirror, and actually feels a little of the old life spring back into his bones. The suit is snug like a second skin, almost painted on, and gives the illusion of extra muscle definition around his legs, chest and arms. Not that he needs it, but he could appreciate the effect.  


He jumps up and down, testing the range of his movement (a little stiff, but not bad) and is distracted by the resultant billowing of his black cape.  


The final piece of the costume rests upon the bed, black eye shadow perched mockingly on top.  


“What’s this?” he had asked Charlie when she’d first delivered his costume.  


“Eye shadow,” she had replied, as if it were obvious. And normal. After a few stormy moments of silence, she had continued: “How else do you think the mask will work? All Batman actors do it.”  


“But Batman doesn’t,” he had wheedled. That was the moment when he decided he was totally not up with the whole cosplaying thing.  


So yeah, he was gonna be the fucking Swan Queen Batman.  


He picks up the eyeliner, and with gentle, feathery strokes applies it along his upper and lower lash lines, just as Charlie had showed him. He struggles getting the line consistent and ends up with a mountain of used, blackened tissues around him. Eventually, the emo effect seemed to be roughly the same on both eyes, so he moves to the powder.  


“Blend! Blend! Blend!” Charlie had said, as she demonstrated the effect that first day, her movements efficient and professional.  


As he began to steadily look more and more like a panda and less like a swan, he wishes she were here with him instead of with Cas, helping his poor angel into whatever costume he was being forced into wearing. The makeup hadn’t looked nearly as bad when Charlie had applied the expensive charcoal.  


He sets down the brush to walk down the hall into the bathroom, ready to wash off his blackened fingers before he put on his mask and gloves. He watches inky rivulets of water wash down the drain with no little satisfaction, and entertains the thought of him doing the same for his face. _Oh well_ , he mentally sighs, turning off the tap.  


As Dean exits the bathroom, he is halted by the most extraordinary sight of Cas knocking on Dean’s bedroom door. Well, knocking certainly isn’t extraordinary—but Cas’ costume was.  


A tight black spandex suit hugs every curve and dip on the angel’s body, so tight it looked painted on. The lines of the seams stood to accentuate his strong shoulders and cup the firm swell of what was a really fucking fantastic ass. Knee-high but sensible heels help arc his lower back, creating the illusion of curves. Perching on the top of his head, nestled amongst his eternal Sex Hair©, were a small pair of ears. Dean’s eyes travel down to Cas’ face, past smoky, perfectly lined eyes, and sees normally chapped lips decked out in bright red lipstick.  


“Catwoman,” Dean breathes, his pants suddenly too tight again.  


He felt a blush rise as Cas turned around, blinks, looks Dean up and down, and licks his lips.  


“And who are you...?" 

"I'm Batman." 

"You’ve been hours, Dean,” the angel complains, voice even huskier than usual.  


“Have I?” Dean wonders absently as he saunters up to Cas. He leans close, feeling Cas’ quickened breath hot against his neck. He reaches around his friend, nearly pressing him up against the door, and grabs the door handle. The portal swings open and he presses his way inside, biting back a moan as Cas’ hand brushes his hip seemingly by accident.  


Cas stalks in after him, locking the door behind him with a sharp click.  


Cas tastes of strawberries and toothpaste, but his mouth is slick, warm and inviting, so Dean dives in, eager for dominance. Cas nips at his lower lip in retaliation, then soothes it with a sweet caress of his tongue, warm as the winter sun on snow.  


Dean’s pushed back onto his bed, landing with a stiff-legged _oomph._ Cas straddles his hips, kneeling, and holds his shoulders down into the mattress. His cock turns to steel. Cas’ lips are spit-slick, smudged, chin rubbed red from Dean’s stubble. Thoroughly distracting. Dean tries to sit upright, to chase after those berry lips, but Cas holds him firm.  


Blue eyes crinkle in the corners as Cas tries to undo Dean’s pants. He manages to push them part the way down his pelvis, but then it sticks to his ass like glue. With a huff, Dean bucks up, Cas still riding his hips, and rolls the rubber pants down to his upper thigh.  


His cock springs free, almost joyously. Cas licks his lips as he pulls off his elbow-length gloves tantalizingly slow, and tosses them to one side. Dean’s breath catches as Castiel shimmers down and laps at the pre-cum spilling from his sensitive head. A moan thrusts its way out of his throat as he suddenly remembers _blowjobs._  


Then Cas goes and fucking _engulfs_ him.  


Cas builds up the suction around the base, working the length steadily deeper down his throat. Dean’s on cloud nine when Cas hums, vibration spilling down into his very bones. Dean can also feel Cas thrusting steadily against Dean’s calves, and looks down to see the head of the angel’s cock peeking through the top of his pants. Dean feels the tell-tale tightening in his balls, the deep heat spreading in his gut. _Too soon,_ he thinks.  


He slips a hand quickly into Cas’ hair and tugs, a broken cry sliding from his lips, safe in the knowledge that Cas knows what he wants.  


Cas pulls off with a hot and heavy exhale, giving the tip one last lick as he slowly slides up to Dean. Dean’s somewhat distracted by the string of pre-cum connecting Cas to his dick, and feels a disproportionate pang of loss when the line breaks.  


Cas kisses him, presses down into him, and Dean rakes his hands over the man’s back, annoyed by the lack of skin. He slides two hands down Cas’ front, and into the seam held ajar by the semi-entrapped erection.  


They stop for a moment, flushed and desperate. The lube’s on the bedside table, but it might as well have been in China. The baby powder is closer, near the pillow. They share a look between one another, communicating rapidly, silently.  


“I’ll have to get up.” Cas all but pouts, relenting with a breathless whisper.  


“Just not the baby powder,” he jokes.  


“I—Oh! Yes, I get that reference.”  


“Rubber?”  


“Suit? Yeah.”  


Dean slides his hand over the silky hard swell of Cas’ ass, under the taut fabric encasing it. Cas growls.  


“Yep. That's rubber,” he says, pulling it back only to let it go with a sharp snap. Cas jerks forward, mouth in an “O”.  


Dean is about to do it again when berry-red lips curve in a quick smile. It’s all the warning Dean gets before his angel bites down on the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Hard.  


“Fuck,” one of them breathes, probably Dean, but Cas looks fairly fucked as well, cat ears askew.  


Cas’ departure from his hips is short-lived, an errand foot still connecting him to Dean as he reaches the lube. There’s a loud crack as the bottle is opened, then Cas is back, all long lines of heat and beauty.  


Slick hands grasp him, and Dean jumps slightly at the initial cold. He helps Cas out, peeling him from his Catwoman tights. There’s something inherently kinky about partially-clothed sex; the thought comes to Dean as Cas takes both their erections in his slender, capable hands. And kinky, not just because one of them was wearing heels.  


Dean’s hand entwines with Cas’, and they buck up together, thrusts building into a rhythm. Cas rides him, close, breath hot and damp against Dean’s neck.  


 _Memory foam, oh glorious memory foam,_ he thinks as he takes the most comfortable fucking of his life. He sends a quick prayer to Cas’ ass, and grins when Cas shoots him a look that lets him know the message was heard.  


 _Oh yeah,_ Dean thought as Cas rubs up against him. Hard. _This was the best idea ever._  


\---  


“Dean! Have you seen Cas? Come on. We’re gonna be late,” Sam calls, and opens his brother’s bedroom door. He closes it quickly.  


“Uh yep,” he coughs out, avoiding Charlie’s eyes. “Definitely gonna be late.”


	8. Day 08- Shopping, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fallen Castiel misses flying, so Dean takes him shopping. They get chocolates from Belgium; whiskey from Ireland —what? Having demonic wings has its perks!

They’re ambling down aisle 2 in Walmart with an empty cart and a list, when Dean is struck with the sadness behind Castiel’s eyes as he gazes at the tinned water chestnuts.

Now, water chestnuts were pretty miserable stuff, but Cas’ eyes slipped between items like a river running its course. Dean looks upon his lover’s dimmed halo, his torn, charred and shredded wings, and comes to a decision.

He leaves the shopping cart in the middle of the walkway, sadistically placed for a mobility scooter, and balls up the list. He’s got Cas’ attention now, who looks up, dark circles staring curiously at him.

“This place blows,” he says, catching Cas’ wrist, rubbing his thumb along the smooth flesh above the pulse point. “Let’s fly.”

Cas swallows, eyes shuttering, but not before Dean registers the look of longing within. “You know I can’t.”

“I’ll carry you.” Cas gives him a curious look. He shrugs. “I’ve been practicing. With the… uh, local squirrels.” He shoots a wry, cocky grin. “Getting pretty accurate, too. Sometimes even a 69% chance of success.”

Cas rolls his eyes, and moves to take back the trolley. “I’m much bigger than a squirrel, Dean.”

“Chrysler building. Gotcha.” He halts Cas’ movement with a squeeze of his wrist. He looks down and holds Cas’ hands. “I’ll never let go, Cas. I promise.”

There’s a pull into the ether as they slip through the dimensions. Dean’s wings slide like quicksilver through the vortex, his true form entwined with Castiel’s, bracketing and protecting him from the tangent winds. Cas’ wings beat feebly in a facsimile of flight, and Dean’s gut drops like a stone at the sight.

But then he looks upon Cas’ light, and sees him glowing, would-be eyes open like the cosmos and staring with wonder at Dean’s blackened self. He kisses him then, flying between the barriers of space, and closes his eyes to the feel of Cas’ laughter vibrating along his lips.

He starts off with yogurt from Lapland for fun. They’re somewhere along the Swedish-Suomi border, Cas observes, politely ignoring the way Dean’s heart’s fucking hammering in his chest because he _did it._ Cas is whole and beautiful and smiling like Christmas. He smiles back, relieved, taking several breaths of air, and it’s warmer than he expected for the Arctic Circle. It’s fresh, but like the cold of a refrigerator door; present but distant.

The day is bright and sunny; white, pure light radiates from a cyanide blue sky. Great mossy pine trees tower over them, where they fringe a small farm.

“Cas?” he asks, letting go of the angel’s hand. 

“Hmm?” Cas makes a questioning noise, sliding over a wooden fence and into the farmyard.

“What are _those_?” The creatures in question are chest-height, grey-white, with a little brown along their knees and nose. They snuffle and graze the along the grass.

“Reindeer.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Sam was gonna throw a goddamn _fit_.

Dean’s smile is big enough to split his face into two as they rock up to the red-painted farmhouse and knock on the heavy wooden door. Belatedly, he wonders if communication will be an issue, but then Cas opens his mouth and out springs the most extraordinary language. It bubbles like a creek, eddying over pebbles, writhing with cold-blooded fish and struck down into by hawks.

They’re welcomed in with a smile.

They spend maybe five minutes trying the offered sandwich meats and cheeses, Cas keeping up a conversation with the elderly woman, before a tub of yogurt is produced. The container is recycled, the expiry date scrawled over and a musical note scribbled beside the pictured cow’s ass.

Warm as Lapland was, he thinks of someplace warmer and winds up in the Hunter Valley, Australia. Vineyards sprawl, shrouded in mist, across the acres, green and lush at the base of rolling, blue-green mountains. They visit the closest “cellar door” and taste the wine, putting on airs, and then sneak into the cellar itself to procure their favorites.  

There’s a dark red smudge along the corner of Cas’ lips, and when Dean grips him tight and kisses him he thinks he tastes of chocolate.

They open their eyes to the Flemish city of Bruges, Belgium. There’s a shop window with rows of delicate, handcrafted chocolates and Cas all but tugs Dean inside. He lets Cas choose as many of them as he likes, indulgently prodding him for his unusual tastes.

The problem of paying comes to a head; he can either find the local currency or high-tail it out of there in a puff of green light. He looks outside at the warm, golden day scented in chocolate, and makes a decision.

He picks the money from the till itself, movements supernaturally fast, and watches with some small satisfaction as he hands it over for it to be placed right back from whence it was taken. Castiel notices, of course, but doesn’t say anything; sometimes Dean wonders what Cas must have done to survive when he was homeless, and wonders if he ever got so hungry that he stole. A part of him thinks he would only root around in the cast-offs, in the trash behind restaurants and half-eaten apple cores placed on top of bins. But another part of him knows what it’s like to be hungry, when it becomes not a moral matter for society, but a primal urge to survive.

He pops one of the chocolates inside Cas’ mouth on a bench opposite the canal, the only sounds the lapping of water, the soft chatter of humanity, and clutter of horse and carriages against the cobblestones. Cas’ lips open like a ripe fruit, chocolate sliding between the soft mounds in a delicious manner. As soon as the chocolate disappears inside, Dean chases it with his own mouth.

Cas moans in surprise, the twin sensations of chocolate and Dean exploding along his tongue. Dean nips Cas’ chapped lips and slips inside, melting chocolate dancing between them. With a crack, Dean transports them to the backseat of the Impala; Lebanon, Kansas.

Cas jerks back, displaced from the quick flight, and Dean tries to follow him, whining at the loss. He manages to pin Cas’ right hand to the window, his left still entwined with the wine and chocolates, and grinds against the taut lines of his lover’s body. A harsh tap at the window cracks them out of their embrace, and Dean snarls at a soccer mum cussing at them from outside. She’s florescent pink and muffled through the window but the words she says claw down his back as his hackles rise.

Black turn his eyes as the beast inside tries to rise— but then there’s blue, deeper and older than the ocean, and it drags him back down and down and down, caressing at his sides, lapping calmly among the monster’s shores. He’s aware that he’s outside, standing in the silent lot; two children cowering behind a fierce but fragile woman. Cas is beside him, pulling him back with all but touch; anchoring him with his very presence.

Dean looks down at Cas’ hands, sees them empty—their “shopping” left in the Impala. He breathes in slowly, counting backwards from one hundred by threes, and grounds himself in the satisfying current of electricity. He touches it from the source; sliding one hand in Castiel’s he locks the Impala with the other in deliberate, slow movements, then secretes them away.

They land in Texas for steak and apples, then slip over to Bushmills in Ireland for whiskey from the oldest distillery in the dampest country. The next stop is obviously for beer, so they procure some from a sunny but chilled Munich, in Germany, their shoes still caked in mud. He goes to Hong Kong, China, with the intention of swiping some rice, but winds up weaving hand-in-hand with Cas through the crowds of people. They press their backs to the wall of a skyscraper, which towers over a grey foreboding sky, their own selves hunched over several containers of unusual dishes.

“Sure its pork?” he asks, and Cas rolls his eyes from where he’s eating something vegetarian.

“Yes. The molecules are of porcine origin,” he assesses from a proffered mouthful. Dean eats with his fingers since he can’t quite get the hang of chopsticks, and ends up being half-fed the food by Castiel. He lets the chopsticks slide into his mouth with a wicked grin, enjoying the blush that rises high onto his angel’s cheeks.

They pick up some strawberries from Liverpool, England; an overflowing crate stolen from a stall near a port where the sun beat down and the air smelled like brine. Since they were already in England, at Cas’ request they went south-west to Somerset for milk in glass bottles and cheese from the Cheddar Gorge. They stood atop the grass-mound ruins of Cadbury Castle with Cas haloed in light, telling him the story of the Lady of Shallot while their perishables waited in the shade of their shadows.

Their bananas were from Reykjavik, Iceland, since according to Cas’ late nights watching random crap on the television, the country was the largest producer in Europe. They’re at a loss for where they get flour from, so at Castiel’s suggestion they pop off to Lake Bled, Slovenia, and shop at the local market. They get muesli, flour, pastry and sugar, and a few other missing bits and bobs. The selection isn’t great, but the cashier speaks perfect English as she places their goods into paper bags.

With their groceries in tow they end up walking a little while along the Slovene lake, which was more than a little Disney with its _two_ castles, and elegant swans floating along the jellybean-blue water. They are fairly laden down by now with bags, and with a heavy heart Dean realizes they will soon have to return home.

Cas crouches down at the lake’s edge and dips his fingers in. A fish swims by in water so clear it appears the silver form is floating, and it nibbles at Castiel’s fingertips. Dean drops his bags and does the same, but the fish scurries away, so he takes the opportunity to splash Cas. His angel takes the attack as War, and charges into the fray, giving better than Dean could ever give.

They’re drenched when Dean admits he’s never had coconut juice, so they wind up on a local ferry somewhere along the Mekong River, in Vietnam. He and Cas end up sipping coconut milk through pink and blue straws, looking down over the boat’s edge. The coconuts are green and smooth-skinned, unlike the furry husks adorned by hula girls.

The day is hot and sticky, the hazy sun shimmering off the muddy river; the scent of mud and exertion permeates the haze. Despite the oppressive humidity, Cas crowds close to him, hip to hip as they watch the setting (or rising, Dean hasn’t quite worked out, yet) sun spill golden, purplish light into the air. Dean inhales, deciding he likes the taste of Cas better, and kisses his lover full on the mouth.

Laden, he takes them back to Kansas, flying slowly, Cas’ weight a welcome anchor in the sea of troubles. Dean watches an exultant expression capture Cas’ face as his broken wings caress the vortex currents for the last flight of the day. It is with a tight throat that Dean gives one last flap of his wings to land them beside the Impala, now bowed down with produce.

But as they load their spoils into the boot, Cas turns to him, a smile playing softly in a curve.

“Thank you, Dean,” he says, making it seem like it was the fucking world and then some.

Dean slaps his angel on the ass and blushes as Cas kisses his cheek, settling into the passenger seat. Dean slips behind the steering wheel and feels inadequate, so he does the only thing he can think to do, and smiles back.


	9. Day 09- Hanging Out With Friends, General

 

 

* * *

 

On a day near midsummer the air hung hot and heavy, the winds laid still, and the whole world seemed to be suspended in that moment between when the water was warm in a saucepan, and when it was at its tumultuous boiling point. The asphalt bubbled and the concrete warped; horns blared and children whined. But in the heart of an ancient forest, surrounded by tall, gentle fir trees, was a small grassy glade.

In this glade, wildflowers speckled the grass, while the great trees dappled and tempered the harsh rays of light. But the air was not still. A hundred bumblebees buzzed and bounced about, cheerfully following the paths of the flowers.

It was these bees that Dean and Castiel had driven two and a half hours to visit, leaving Sam on a hunt in Wichita.

“They’re my friends,” Cas had explained, as they followed the path of the insects to the glade. “Although, they’re dying too.”

“All the bees?” asked Dean.

“Yes,” replied Cas, a note of melancholy in his voice.

But as they reached the glade, they saw they were not to be alone. A man-shaped being stretched out on the springy green grass. His steel grey hair and beard glinted almost golden in the sunlight.

“Greetings,” said the being, but made no attempt to move.

“Hello Cain,” acknowledged Cas, his head tilted in welcome.

“You two know each other already?” asked Dean.

 “He keeps very good care of bees,” explained Cas.

Dean thought back to a time when his angel, mind as turbulent and wild as the buzzing of bees, had turned up on his car quite naked, covered in the very insects.

“They’re verra relaxin’,” drawled Cain, and they walked closer. “One mornin’, I awoke an' found a half-broke angel in my garden. Said he followed their path to my verra doorstep.”

At the wave of Cain’s slender hand they joined him on the grass, placing their small pack of food and drink beside the ancient demon’s own basket.

They shared soft, honey sandwiches, ripe strawberries, pumpkin and pecan pie, and washed it all down with mead. The sun gentled some as they softly conversed, so they moved to a spot where the grass glows fluorescent.

“All our friends are dead,” said Dean to an unasked question, making like a cat in the sun.

“Or in different dimensions,” corrected Cas, spreading his legs out in front.

“And Garth’s a werewolf, so that doesn’t count,” Dean mused.

Cain chuckled dryly. “I can appreciate that.” Then, his lips paused around the frosted neck of his bottle of mead. “Colle—Castiel, can you pass me the cob o’ corn?”

Cas acquiesced, and tossed one to Dean for good measure. Together, the two majestic demons strip the corn from its husk with sure movements. They make no mention of the last promise Dean gave to Cain—to drive the first blade through his cotton-covered chest and halt the stark suffering of life.

In the glade there is no suffering; there is only the sky through the branches, streaked orange and indigo. As sun slipped slowly down that very sky it left behind a condensation mark, while the very bees themselves quietened down alongside the day, ready to rest.


	10. Day 10- With Animal Ears, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean is a Jackal. That is all.

“Why does Dean have animal ears?” asks Sam as he walks into Bobby’s kitchen. Castiel watches as the taller Winchester procures a beer from the fridge and leans against the counter.

Dean’s ears flick down in embarrassment. Castiel decides to shoulder some of that embarrassment for him.

“Dean and I encountered Anubis. I believe it took offense at Dean’s disposition.”

“The case in Poway was an Egyptian God? Not bad,” comments Sam. “So you got dog ears?”

Dean growls over his plate of bacon and eggs. “Shut up.”

“Technically they are jackal ears,” says Cas, correcting Sam.

“Yeah yeah, princess. Laugh it up. I’ll be back to normal in a few hours, so take your fill.”

Cas takes Dean’s hand under the table, brushing his thumb soothingly over Dean’s flesh.

“No research? How’d you know it’s gonna go back?” Sam’s smiling now, his tone light. Cas can see he’s watching the way Dean’s ears flick back and forth, connected as they are to Dean’s inner thoughts.

When Dean simply stares down at the table, ears twitching minutely, and makes no motion to answer, Cas does it for him.

“Two hours ago Dean was in a jackal’s form. The effects are steadily reversing—I believe he even no longer retains a tail.”

“Like the anime? Well I think you look adorable with jackal ears, Dean,” teases Sam. “Goes with your jackass ass.”

“Dude. You did not just compare me with hentai.”

“Technically, while hentai is a subset of anime, it is only one subcategory and does not necessitate a connection.” At Dean and Sam’s bewildered expression, he adds: “In case you were wondering about your brother’s erotic intentions towards you.”

“Oh. My. God.” Both brothers say. In one synchronized motion, they bury their heads into their own hands.

“BALLS! Why in heck is it snowing?” Bobby’s voice rings loudly from the study, where he had passed out the night before amidst several dusty tomes.

Sam’s face is beet-red when he emerges from his hands, but he seems to have regained control of himself, somewhat. “I was wondering about that too. It’s only October.”

“Dean expressed yesterday a desire to participate in a snowball fight with me, so I manipulated the weather. I believe he was not expecting my superior expertise in the game.”

As expected, this results in an indignant Dean, ears flung back in a mockery of anger. “I won, fair and square.”

“I hit you more times than you did me,” Castiel points out, rather reasonably.

“Only because you cheated!”

“Yeah,” interrupts Sam. “I’m gonna leave you two to that. Get a jumper. A dentist for the cavities, maybe…”

As Sam leaves the room Cas reaches over and scratches behind Dean’s ears. They’re soft and silky, and Castiel mourns the loss of Dean’s full jackal form. Dean instinctively moves into his touch, a blush painting his cheeks. If he were a cat, he would be purring.

Castiel wonders then if the cat goddess Bast would be similarly inclined to react as Anubis had done. Dean would make an exceptional feline.

He smiles.


	11. Day 11- Wearing Kigurumis, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene from the 5.08 episode, _Changing Channels_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas are in an established relationship.

“I dunno. Even for the Trickster, this is pretty weak.”

Dean, Cas and Sam sit inside a small classroom, each behind individual desks patterned into a exact grid. The other students’ faces are nondescript, and a teacher drones in front of a chalkboard, muffled. Outside, Dean can see cherry blossoms float in the wind, a sea of said blossoming trees stretching into the distance, to the very foot of what appears to be Mount Fuji.

Inexplicably, they are all sitting next to the window, in animal onesies.

“Dude look,” Dean laughs, in an I’m-in-a-classroom voice. “I’m a unicorn.”

He adjusts his plush horn to the centre of his head with hoof-encased hands. Sam’s looking down at his arms, a concerned expression on his face.

“Dean. This kigurumi. What am I?”

“Kiggu-what?”

“It’s the Japanese name for onesie.” He affects a stern, slightly panicked look. “What. Am. I.”

Dean looks at his brother, decked out in loud, garish colors, glitter, oversized shoes and a fake red nose. Yeah, this wasn’t going to end pretty.

“A belly dancer,” he lies, and turns to Cas, who is dressed as a somewhat provocative bunny. If onesies could be said to be sexy. His onesie was actually in two pieces, showing off a pale belly. He had to hand it to the Trickster; the dude knew how to party.

Cas still can’t talk, his mouth locked shut by something of the Trickster’s doing. His eyes are wide and his cheeks are red.

Dean smiles. If anyone were going to be anime, it would be Cas and those big baby blues. Dean feels his cheeks growing unusually hot, and spares a thought that his cheeks could be etched over in red, diagonal lines.

“So how do we get out of here?” Sam stage whispers, a sheen of sweat over his forehead and a large drop of two-dimensional water hovering next to his temple. “How do we ‘play our roles’?”

“I dunno, man. Fuck the teacher?”

“That’s porn! Not anime!”

“Same thing,” scoffs Dean. “And since we’re not going on a quest of freaking self-discovery, this makes it a romance.”

Sam is eyeing him strangely. Thankfully, the bell chooses that moment to sound, the cacophony of thirty students standing and walking out fills the air.

“I’ve got an idea!” Dean calls to Sam over the din, who merely cocks his head indignantly, now surrounded by a dozen giggling (and very short) anime chicks.

Dean takes a bewildered Cas by the wrist and pulls him outside. He casts his eyes about for a broom closet. “Sorry man, but we gotta play our roles. That okay?”

At this, Cas turns scarlet and nods, pupils dilating. A closet door pops into existence and they squeeze inside. Dean’s quick at removing their kigurumis, a thousand anime starbursts surrounding them.

“Fuck our roles,” Dean says, scant inches away from his angel’s lips, and Cas takes that as a suggestion.


	12. Day 12- Making Out, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The follies of reality strike again! *author sips on a Golden Pash*

There’s a difficulty inherent in making out.

When you’re both guys.  

And you do it for a long time.

When you’re both guys fond of the two-day stubble effect.

Which doesn’t seem that all great of an effect now they’re both rubbed raw, and not in the sexy and satisfying sense.

“Ow…” mumbles Cas, a bag of peas held to his abraded chin. “This burns worse than the siege to hell.”

“Stop whining.”

“But it won’t _stop.”_

“Neither did you, Lothario.” Dean lets out a puff of air, shifting in his seat as the zip-lock of ice leaks soothing but troublesome iced water down his swollen red lips.

“It takes two to osculate, Dean,” Cas says, but is distracted by aforementioned dripping water.

“Kissing, dude. _Kissing_. Which we’re never doing again. Ever.”

“Ever,” confirms Cas.

They look at each other for a long, intense moment, their faces growing steadily numb under the cold.

“So uh, Cas.” Dean gingerly places his makeshift icepack into the sink.

“Yes, Dean?” Cas sets his peas down in a similar manner.

“…kiss it better?” Dean sounds small, like a footnote in a heavy tome.

There is a certain gravitas in Cas’ reply. “Of course, Dean,” he says, and that was that.


	13. Day 13- Eating Ice Cream, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-script for the 5x03 episode: _Free to be You and Me_.

Instead of going straight back to the abandoned house, Dean and Castiel make a pit stop at the closest convenience store. Dean’s not entirely sure why he chose to pull over and drag his friend inside, but there was a vague wish for this night not to end. Not yet. Not when it could be Cas’ last.

“Booze n’ food,” he says when Cas asks after their next course of action. “Booze n’ food.”

He picks up two six packs of some fancy beer he wouldn’t normally buy, but buys it anyway because Cas didn’t need to spend his life thinking beer was made of piss. Well, what was left of it, at least.

Funyons, Doritos, and a home brand extra hot salsa.

He hands the pricy beers to Cas since the dude can take the weight, and is about to lead the way to the register when the freezer catches his eye. He looks inside out of curiosity, and grabs a small container of ice cream on a whim. The lid is frosted and the design is cheap but the flavor is raspberry, and that’s all that matters.

Cas is standing near the till, his face blank and yet something about it gave the impression of a beatific smile. Dean’s getting sick of Last-Nights-on-Earth, but he recognizes the small, profound ways in which they allow things to matter. And that’s cool.

He thinks of opportunities and hides a smile as he remembers the look on Cas’ face when he first spied Chastity. Terrified. Awed. And then those eyes had turned, shining and impossibly blue, to Dean. Pleading.

The half asleep attendant rings up the purchases and Dean pays, half focused on the way Cas still has his top buttons undone, his tie and hair a mess. He wonders if he is a bad friend for not pointing it out, or a good one for not fixing it with shaking fingers and a hidden blush.

Cas’ eyes are fixed on Dean’s as they drive back to the place they’re squatting in. The car radio is loud and invigorating, and Dean is thinking about buying a stairway to heaven. To punch some dick faces in. To feel the slick crunch of bone and blood mingling with singed feathers. In his fantasy, he strikes Raphael down with his hand covered in engine grease, his bloodied knuckles wrapped with a backwards blue tie. But then Raphael chuckles lowly like an earthquake, a dark squeeze in the mortal gut, and produces a long spear of something Dean knows to be the bleached wing bone of a fallen, dead angel.

There is little comfort in knowing that no angel would be stupid enough to fall for him. Instead, he schools his face as he feels the wing bone spear drive through his imagined body, slipping between his ribs like a needle, ripping a hole into his cholesterol-blocked, blackened and scarred heart. His heart is still beating though, and he feels the phantom pains as he puts his baby into park under a shattered streetlight.

He chugs down a beer inside the house, Cas matching him swallow for swallow. The action feels vaguely intimate and Dean can feel a heat pooling in his gut.

He finds two dusty forks in the kitchen and washes them with the dregs of their beers. He thinks of Cas’ lips dragging the melting cream from the tines until his dry-looking lips are moist with raspberry flavor. As Dean reaches over to give Cas the fork their hands connect, a small static shock occurs, and rips through Dean’s heart like nothing else.

Their hands part, and the moment’s gone before it can linger.

They’ve held hands before, maybe half a dozen times if Dean’s feeling generous, but it never counted—it would _never_ count. With that concept comes a sense of Freedom herself skipping down a bustling street, a peony flower crown in her hair, hand in hand with Doom.

They aren’t holding hands; instead they’re kicked out from a classy brothel, a few drinks smoldering in their bellies, inside a ramshackle house with half a foot of dust and a garden gone to seed. And one of them expects to die tomorrow.

Dean’s life was never meant to be fair.

So he grabs a machete from his duffel and places the tub of ice cream on the old wooden bench top. He swings and strikes the tub, splitting it neatly down the middle. He hands Cas the bigger half and grabs a couple more beers.

They walk outside to a midnight sky clouded and full. The moon peeks through and an owl hoots, and Dean half expects a clichéd bat to shoot out of a rundown garden shed. They sit on the porch, legs dangling over the edge. Cas’ eyes catch his and they share a long, searching look, before Dean breaks it, casting about for movement in the dark.

They eat raspberry ice cream from their makeshift bowls with beer-washed forks. It’s got a sense of poetry to it, so Dean smiles around the brisk, wicked breeze and presses his leg against Cas’, warm and solid through the polyester blend.

He feel s Cas shift slightly, and looks at him. Cas looks back, licking his lips. There is a long stretch of nothing but the sounds of his ears ringing in the quiet of the night. Then, Cas speaks, not breaking the moment but burrowing deeper into it.

“Is this what happens?” he asks, voice a low rumble.

Dean swallows, and takes another forkful of ice cream to his mouth. Cas watches him, eyes lingering on what Dean presumes to be his lips.

“Maybe,” Dean replies truthfully. “Normally the Last Night on Earth speech ends in a little action. But well, you weren’t exactly all aboard with Chastity, were you?”

Dean smirks as the double meaning registers—Cas was interested in chastity, but not with Chastity. He wonders if the irony was lost on his friend.

Cas blinks, breaking the spell between their eyes. The angel looks down at his ice cream, at the hollow where he had eaten large, melting scoops. Dean is slightly shocked when Cas pours the rest of his beer into the well of ice cream. It bubbles and foams, pinkish brown.

Cas was weird, but he ate the ugly mess like it was a four star dessert.

“The Last Night on Earth speech,” Cas comments, “wasn’t given by Chastity.”

Dean flinches minutely and stares at his grime-creased hands. “Yeah well,” he begins roughly. “Bert and Ernie might be gay, but I’m not. So—“

“I’m hardly a man, Dean,” interrupts Cas. “And I wouldn’t think it mattered if I were.”

Cas is staring at him knowingly, and a small part of him panics. There’s silence. Hard, oppressive silence.  And then:

“I admit… I am unsure of how to proceed.” Cas’ voice slices through the quiet like teeth through skin. “What the next course of action is.”

“We butterfly-net us a flying mega-dick.”

“Dean.” Cas stares at him with eyes shining almost wet in the night. Dean coughs, and places his finished beer and ice cream to the ground. He suddenly feels cold.

They then stare at the night for a little while, and walk around the overgrown garden. Bramble thorns catch their clothes, and spider webs crown their hair. When Cas next speaks, it is nearly casual.

“It’s my last night on Earth,” he says.

Dean shoots him a grin, one that Cas returns. “You’re stealing my best line.”

The smile wavers as their hands mold together, firm and chilled and perfect. Dean sighs, and brushes his thumb over Cas’. “I guess I’m not ready.”

He doesn’t say what he’s not ready for, because he’s not really sure himself. Cas seems to understand, though, cocking his head with a small smile.

Hidden behind a half-dead yew, one of them leans forward and they meet, shyly electric. Dean’s heart stutters in his chest as they kiss in a garden gone to seed behind an abandoned house. Cas tastes cold from ice cream and deeply hot like the sun. Like beer and thunder, and that pecan pie they had back before dinner. The taste of raspberry lingers on his lips though, and Dean licks around the seam of his mouth, hungrier than he’s been in years.

Cas moves, somewhat inexperienced, but in an utterly earnest way. His lips are softer than rose petals, and when their teeth click together, instead of pulling back he dives in, nipping Dean’s lips and tongue playfully.

Dean’s hands are shaking hard by the time he puts them on Cas’ body—one on his hip and the other entangled in his hair. For a moment, he doesn’t worry about falling. About dragging his angel down into the mud, sullied and broken. It’s the Last Night on Earth, and Dean’s got the one angel he cares about in his arms.  

As they move together in the pale light of the moon, Dean feels powerful, part of a whole that’s one part him, and one part Cas. He feels like together they are invincible, and in that moment they are, and will always be.

Dean pulls away softly; taking in blue hooded eyes and kiss-swollen lips, he can see the exact moment Cas looks into Dean’s heart.

He kisses him again, and knows that he will never, ever forget this night.

It’s no longer the Last Night on Earth, but a Night of Something New.


	14. Day 14- Genderswapped, Explicit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has a lot on his plate right now. Sam's possessed by an angel, Kevin's on Adderall, and Castiel is mad. Oh yeah, and his fiery glow stick of love was not all it was cracked up to be. 
> 
> Dean is cursed and has to act like a woman to counter it. In a very basic sense, he needs to keep it up to get it up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that the prompt states _gender_ swapped. There is a distinct difference between sex and gender—the latter being a social construction, among other things. (Basically, sex-swap is a dime a dozen in this fandom—precious reader, allow me err on the side of presumed creativity)
> 
> Okay, so at ~7 500 words this turned into a monster. I might end up cleaning it up and reposting it as an individual work, since it is a little different to the rest of these works in here. There’s so much porn, for one. I might try to post a clean version on tumblr, but I have no idea how. It is, at its core, smut.
> 
> The sheer writing time is part of the reason why it has taken so long to upload. The other reason being that I have been on a road trip, with minimal or zero internet to upload. Apologies for that! Should be back on track now, though.
> 
> Events in this story take place early Season 9-- between "Rock and a Hard Place" and "Holy Terror". A fix-it, if you will.

The first two times it happens, Dean brushes it off as a combination of booze, age, and wrong headspace. It’s not until he can’t get it up with Suzy Lee that he realizes there’s something’s rotten in the den. In a porn star’s bed, who had never in her long and industrious career for Casa Erotica ever failed to give him the _lift._

Until now.

His snake wouldn’t be charmed. His balls refused to hit the _eject_ button. The fiery glow stick of love was not all it cracked up to be. His heart rate sped, the sweat trickled down, arousal would pool in his gut, but no release would _come_. He ends up just eating Suzy Lee taco extraordinaire out, because he is a gentleman in bed, but it’s _frustrating_ to not be able to… you know, _dive in there._

Something was hinky on the freaky train, and Dean was determined to figure it out. But first, research.

His first point of call would normally be his big geek brother, but until he knew more… well, this was personal, man. Second phone-a-friend would be to Kevin, but the kid had somehow got his hands on Adderal and was three sheets to the wind at this stage. He contemplates Charlie, but she’s in Oz, and Dean has the feeling she’s more likely to just fake a prescription for some medical-grade version the little blue pill, if there was one.

There is, of course, one other person that ranks high on his White Knight list, and that is Cas. But him and Cas were… complicated.

So, research.

Firstly, he tries some physical experimentation.

Research already undertaken:

  *          Attempted coupling with sexual partners one through three: unsuccessful.



Three hook-ups, between kicking Cas out and now. Three tries of the limp noodle. He hadn’t been looking for hook-ups, they had just… fallen into his lap. It was as if there was a sign over his head flashing “Colossal fuck-up but a good lay.” There was guilt there, but he knew where he stood with Cas right now, and it wasn’t a good place. A veritable no-hoper.

He wonders briefly if Cas is behind it, and this is some jilted lover freaky angel crap, but he thinks back to the stilted way Cas had treated him last time in that Gas n’ Sip. It had not been in the manner of someone who had already exacted revenge.

(Even though the bastard thought it okay to go on a date with his boss while Dean was right there. Dean had let him, because as much as it had hurt, he can recognize the guy deserves some happiness in his shitty life _._ Happiness that Dean cannot hope to give.)

Research to undertake:

  *          Masturbation



Dean lies on his bed in the bunker, quietly appreciating the memory foam. He’s got his pants rucked up around his ankles, and a lube-slick hand rubs at his inner thigh. He allows his other hand to wander, brushing over his lips, his neck, his chest. He thinks back to how Cas loved to nip and tease his nipples, so he pinches the left one, flicking it back and forth until it pebbled under his thumb.

A warm spread of arousal courses through him at this, but a quick look down shows the meat still uncooked and limp. He tries not to be disheartened, so continues his lazy exploration of his body.

He lets a hand tease his perineum; sparks fly behind his eyes as he brushes his entrance. A quiet moan escapes as he is breached, and with his other hand, he goes to grab his cock.

It’s sleeping.

The fucker.

Since physical manipulation has failed, he tries conjuring up a fantasy.

He closes his eyes and imagines opening the door to the bunker. The smell of freshly baked pecan pie wafts up to greet him. He takes off his shoes and jacket, and with socked feet goes in search of the pie. The silken panties under his jeans brush over his sensitive skin, and his dream-self bites back a moan.

He rounds a corner to see Cas bent over the sink. He’s wearing a “Kiss the Cook” apron. And nothing else. Dean sneaks up behind him, deciding on a course of action. He can see Cas has been prepared, bent over as he is, and part of him wants to say hello by just parting that silken flesh and driving straight into him.

Instead, he grabs a spatula and gives Castiel’s rear a light tap. Dream-Cas gasps in surprise, and his upper half turns to face him. Big, wet blue eyes stare right into Dean, begging him wordlessly to be able to stay at the bunker. With Dean.

“Please, Dean,” Cas chokes out, and Dean swears.

The fantasy dissolves away under the metaphorical feeling of a bucket of cold water thrown over him.

“Shit,” he swears again, this time at the state of his Johnson. It is still firmly on vacation, and appears that it found no action in thefantasy.

So, onto step two:

  *          Actual Research



He writes down all the monster crap he’s dealt with these past couple of months. It is a sizable list. He gives Crowley a visit in the dungeon and happily strikes the demons off the list of suspects. He also knocks off the angels, since most of the flying dicks were still to realize what having a dick _meant._

That left…

  *          The case with the dogs and the whackadoodle chef;
  *          The ghost at the Old Home;
  *          The bag of cats medical angel
  *          The Wicked Witch of the West;
  *          The cultish witches; and
  *          Vesta.



Since all cases but the weird-ass witches happened _after_ the ‘symptoms’, Dean decides to take a further look. He opens Sam’s case notes with a half-drunk beer on the side.

The witches were worshippers of Bahuchara Mata—some Hindu goddess. The travelling witches—well, warlocks—had lopped off their own danglies before showing up on the Hunter radar after moving onto the local family jewels of towns along the interstate.

It had been a fairly open and close case. Sam had distracted the spell-workers while Dean had attempted a leap into the fray.

That the handful of worshippers fell on their own swords was a convenient, if bloody gesture. 

Dean’s got a book of Hindu dicks open, wishing there was an index, when Sam pops his mug around the corner

“What ya up to?” he asks.

“Research,” Dean grunts.

“Oh yeah?” Sam asks. “On what?” The giant puppy ambles into the room, looking genuinely interested. Dean tries to hide the book, but Sam’s fast.

“Hindu deities? Have we got a case?”

“No,” Dean replies quickly.

“Hey didn’t we—“

Dean snaps the book shut and walks out, hoping the flush staining his skin came across as a side effect of anger. Which, it totally was.

But then Sam knocks on his door not twenty minutes later, the same book tucked under his arm.

“Dean?” he calls, and does not wait for Dean to answer any more than a grunt before loping inside the room.

Dean makes an indignant, bored noise.

“Have you been having some… _difficulties?”_

“No.” Dean is going to kill that Hindu bitch. “What difficulties?”

“Impotence.” Sam’s looking at him in that way he does that reads ‘I know when you’re lying so don’t be a jerk’,  also known as Bitchface #43.

“No,” Dean lies, and Sam knows it. He waves the book under Dean’s nose.

“So get this. There’s a legend in here of Bahuchara. Like the cult we dismantled a couple of months ago. So in the legend, her worshippers are travelling on this road when they’re accosted by this man Bapiya. Bahuchara and her sisters announced something called tragu. And uh, off themselves.”

“So?” Dean asks in a measured voice. Sam’s sympathy face is giving him indigestion.

“Legend has it that Bapiya was cursed and became impotent.”

“Fucking great for him.”

“Dean.”

“How do we kill the bitch?”

Sam’s face turns thoughtful. “There’s nothing in here about killing her. But it does about how the Babiya lifted the curse.”

Dean’s ears prick up. “So, hypothetically, whatever he did can be done again if someone got cursed?”

Sam nods.

“How’d it happen then?” Dean prompts, somewhat impatiently. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Of course.” Sam’s eyes dart off Dean’s face, and land somewhere on the ceiling. Either Dean didn’t clean from the last time he’d spanked the monkey (fuck, not since the week after he’d told Cas to go), or Sam was avoiding something.

Dean punches him on the shoulder.

“Hebecameawoman.” Sam’s voice comes out in a rush, voice breaking on _woman._

“Come again?”

“So… the curse lifted only by the guy dressing and acting like a woman,” Sam says, quite earnest now. “It was seen as him worshipping Bahuchara Mata, so she forgave him.”

There’s a horrified pause. “Let me see that.”

Sam hands him the book.

“Dude.”

“I know, Dean.”

“No.”

“Bu—”

“No. No. No.”

 

* * *

 

‘No’ still echoes around Dean’s head in the shower, as he shaves his beard, and even as he brushes his teeth ready for bed. No, no no. He places his toothbrush back next to Castiel’s and feels, not for the first time, envious of the little stick of plastic.

He lies in bed with his thoughts spinning. He wonders if he would ever lie in bed with Cas again, whispering all and nothing, hold him close like he never means to let go. Feel the searing mouth of Cas on his, until it trailed down his chest onto his navel, and stoke the fire below, wet and hot.

The heat is pooling in his gut again, and he takes a chance—lifts the blankets and… no. No, nothing.

What would he look like as a woman? He imagines himself with long wavy hair, spilling over his perfect breasts. With an hourglass figure, wrapped up in fragile materials and… oh crap. Did this mean he had to wear make up?

The last thought that comes to him before he slips into the dreamless is of him and Rhonda Hurley, wearing her silken panties and _liking it._

 

* * *

 

“Yes.”

Sam jumps up from Captain Crunch with a _look._ “ _Yes_ yes?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

And that was that.

 

* * *

 

They go to the biggest department store in a 50-mile vicinity, because as Dean explains, there’s anonymity in numbers. They’re having some sort of a sale on, which is nice, even though Dean expects to nick a few things too.

Sam steers Dean’s defeated self enthusiastically towards the Women’s department floor.

“If you’re gonna be a woman, you’re gonna have a bra fitting.”

Dean slams to a halt. “A what and why?”

But Sam leaves him anchored amongst a sea of beige and white granny knickers, wondering _why_ they had to start with the lingerie.

“I don’t even _have_ boobs,” he mutters to no one in particular. He spots a teenage boy by the negligees, looking equal parts bored and embarrassed. He gives him a nod of the kindred, but the boy looks away until his mother returns to him, laden with discount bin underwear.

Finally, Sam’s gigantor frame looms over the racks, towing a small, matronly woman behind him. Dean shifts uncomfortably as the old woman surveys him with eyes well worn by smiles. She gives a brisk nod.

“We’ll start with the wireless ones,” she says, and Dean suppresses the hope that she’s talking about electronics.

Sam offers to have a look around while Dean’s getting fitted, something for which he’s grateful. He was not going to wear a bra and panties in front of his baby brother.

The Matronly woman pulls him into a dressing room and into a cubicle. He is told to take his shirt off, and once done, call her back in.

Matron appears, armed with a measuring tape, which goes around his chest in quick, efficient movements. She makes no comment to his scars and bruises, or tattoo, or even to the slight softness around his belly. For all appearances, measuring men for a bra is a daily occurrence. He wonders what Sam told her and scowls.

“Will you be wanting padding or no?” Matron’s voice breaks him from his reverie.

 _Become a woman. Become a woman._ His eyes flick briefly down to his cursed crotch. _Get a working dick. Become a woman._

“Yes?”

Matron purses her lips, responding to his hesitation. “I’ll bring both. Then you can decide. Won’t be a minute, deary.”

She next waddles in with half a dozen coat hangers. Dean plucks the first one off the pile. It’s plain, off-white and triangular, and reminds him of his freshman year. He suppresses a shudder.

“No?” asks Matron.

Dean shakes his head.

“Go through those and pick the ones you like to try on.” She taps the pile. “I’ll be just outside should you need me.”

Dean picks up an olive green flimsy thing. It’s got pastel pink swirls around the cups and thin straps. He pulls his arms through the holes and tries to do the clasp up behind him. His shoulder twinges at the angle and he winces. Just how did women do this?

He takes the bra off. He’s struck with some inspiration, and rotates the bra until the clasp is in front. He clips it together, then rotates it back and slides his arms through the holes once again. The bra shimmies up to his pecs. The material distends slightly from his chest, only partially filled by his muscles there. He looks in the mirror, considering.

The thing fit well enough, he guessed, but the color clashed with his skin tone. He backpedals for a moment, embarrassed by his color-coordinating consciousness.

_Become a woman._

He turns back to the mirror. Yeah, the color didn’t match his eyes, either. _Discard_.

Matron shows him how to flesh out bras using socks and fillets, and the best ways to bend over to _push_ things up. He winds up with three bras, one ‘practical’, one ‘pretty’ and one he chose because of the silken way it clung to his body.

“Can I wear this one now?” he asks, curious, brushing his thumbs over the hem.

“Sure,” smiles Matron, “I’ll just ring it up for you.”

Dean finds Sam inspecting a pair of tartan heels in the shoe area. Beside him, there is a large shopping cart of clothes.

He didn’t think the store even _had_ shopping carts.

“Dude. What the fuck?”

Sam gives him a shrug. “Oh good, you’re here. Quick, try these on.” He holds out the garish tartan stilettos.

“I think you’re enjoying this way too much, Samantha.”

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” smiles Sam, teasing.

“I _knew_ you wanted to braid my hair, jerk.”

“Bitch.”

Dean ends up choosing a pair of slightly more feminine combat boots. They’re one of the few things in his size and don’t rub too much, either. There’s a blonde chick that walks past in a similar pair, and they make her look leggy like a model, so Dean thinks he’s set.

He winds up with the shopping cart of clothes in the men’s changing room to try the Sam Winchester vetted clothes. Most of them were just plain fugly, so Dean puts them in the discard pile without trying on. The other half did not even fit.

He settles on two strappy singlet tops in bright colors, three plaid button downs, something with a flowy neckline, yoga pants, skinny jeans, a slinky dress, stockings, shorts, and one pair of knee-high stripy socks. He ends up putting a skirt in that pile to, because hey, if Buffy could do it, then he could too. There is some serious consideration regarding a blouse with ruffles that reminds him of a cunt, but he ends up discarding it because it was white. His life was too dirty for white to survive in his wardrobe. He thinks something bold might suit it though, because the shirt reminds him of Kali’s, and that was one badass chick.

“Does this come in red?” he asks Sam as he comes out, back in his normal gear. He’s got some keepers smuggled in his pants, though, including some seductive-ass underwear.

For a few precious moments, Sam does a spot-on impression of a fish. “Red? Uh, I think so?”

He claps Sam on the shoulder. “Become a woman, Sammy. Become a woman.”

They go to conquer the land of make-up next, much to Dean’s chagrin. The assistants ignore them until Sam starts chasing Dean with an orange lipstick—then, a prissy oompa loompa marches in. Dean thinks she might possibly be Latino under the pancake. The chick comes up, body language betraying her intention of kicking them out.

“I’m afraid I must ask you to leave if you don’t intend to buy anything,” she snipes.

Sam blinks at her, puppy-face #4 on his face. “But we do intend.”

That brings Oompa Loompa up short. Dean can see her brain ticking over. “You two? Make-up?”

“Oh no,” laughs Sam. “Just my brother here.”

Dean shoots his precious brother with a glare.

“Is there a problem here?” says a new voice. They turn around and see it belonging to a very tall black woman. She’s wearing a store nametag—Clarice—and Oompa Loompa backpedals.

“Oh. Of course. That _is_ darling.”

“I can look after the customers, Stef,” drawls Clarice. Dean’s struck by her resemblance to female Raphael, and spends a few moments pulling his mind away from the memory of her exploding in a snap.

Clarice walks him through blush and foundation, which seems to serve no purpose other than to hide his freckles. His dark circles and crows feet look less pronounced in the mirror though, making him less haggard and more youthful. Still, he balks at mascara. It looks more likely to poke his eyes out than it is to do good.

“But you have such beautiful lashes,” argues Clarice as she applies baby-pink gloss to his lips. When he shakes his head again, she sighs. “I suppose we could use false lashes. Or, you can get them tinted. There’s a beauty place around the corner that does it. Queen of the Hot. They do waxing and tanning too. I have a voucher if you like.”

“Ooh! Waxing!” exclaims Sam.

“No. No. No no no, no; no.”

Later that night, as Dean soaps up his now hairless and smooth body, he ruefully admits to himself that the waxing _was_ a good idea.

 

* * *

 

Dean spends the next couple of days wandering around the bunker decked out like a painted whore, trying the think female thoughts. He watches _The Notebook_ and _The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,_ and Sam even joins him for _Steel Magnolias_ and ends up hogging all the tissues.

Not that Dean needed them.

Each night he goes to bed with the intention to clean the pipes, and ends up dressing up his frustration with no place to go.

Even Sam comments on his bad mood.

“PMS already?”

“Shut it, jerk.”

 

* * *

 

On Friday morning, Sam looks over his breakfast at Dean. No, that’s not quite right: he looks at Dean’s knee-high stripy socks and shorts and fucking _smiles._

“So ah, still no improvement?”

“Nope,” Dean says, and pours himself a bowl of Lucky Charms.

“So I’ve been in contact with this professor in Washington. She specializes in Hindu theology. I was thinking we could go up there, see if there’s anything we missed. How to summon Bahuchara Mata. That sort of thing. The Men of Letters weren’t too thorough with their Asian pagans.”

Dean considers this. “I have to go out? Like this?”

“Lose the socks, maybe. But yeah. If you want to break the curse, you can’t stop now.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“I’m really not.”

“Washington? Don’t we pass through Idaho?”

Sam shoots him a knowing look. “You want to give Cas a holler this time?”

Dean’s heart stutters at the sound of Castiel’s name. His guts twist uncomfortably and he coughs. “Actually I was thinking you could drop me off. See how the dork’s doing.”

“And I continue onto Washington? Okay.”

Okay. Dean grins for the first time in days around a spoonful of cereal.

 

* * *

 

Dean steps onto the cracked pavement at Rexford, Idaho, the strong easterly wind nearly whipping his hat and wig off. He scowls around his oversized sunglasses and waves to Sam, watching him oil his sleek baby out of town. He had already spoken to Ziek about the trip, and while he does not fully trust the angel, at least his brother looks alive again.

Attacked by nervous butterflies, Dean walks up and down the main street twice, scoping the town, before he gains the courage to go into the Gas n’ Sip.

Inside, it is unchanged from last time. There are three exits, a slushie machine, and taquitos. Castiel’s blonde floozy boss stands behind the counter, and Dean ignores her as he peruses the nut selection.

A heavy weight settles in Dean’s gut. It is possible Cas had moved on, spooked from the events of Ephraim. He has no way to contact Cas. What if last time he spoke to him _was_ the last time? Ever? The plastic container of cashews he had been inspecting splinters under his grip. He drops it quickly.

Dean is ready to walk out.

“Dean?”

He thinks his heart actually stops, because when he turns around it splutters and quivers as if it is trying, and failing, to get things back on track.

Cas stands there in his stupid-ass blue vest and ‘Steve’ nametag, looking like he grabbed everything that was fucking beautiful in the world and had shoved it in a salesclerk uniform. Dean’s breath catches and for a moment he can’t do anything.

“Heya Cas,” he manages, relocating his sunglasses to the top of his head. The movement grounds him somewhat. “Surprise?”

“Dean.” Cas sounds confused, and Dean’s brain catches up.

Dean fingers his prissy scarf self-consciously. “Oh. Yeah I’m a painted whore nowadays. How’d ya recognize me anyway?”

He’s a little put out by that actually, because no matter what Sam says, Dean thinks he makes a passable woman. At least, he hopes he doesn’t look like a drag queen. It was just not his _style._

“I am familiar with your body and would know it anywhere. Especially displayed like…”

Oh right, the skinny jeans. “Man, you should see the yoga pants.”

Despite himself, Cas looks intrigued. “Is there a case?”

“Sort of. Ready to blow town?”

Castiel’s face closes off. “And do what, Dean? Have me homeless again? I like it here. There’s a real--”

“Dignity in what you do. Yeah, yeah. You gave the speech last time. And I’m dignified. When I’m not in drag.”

Cas looks forlornly at the Slushee machine. Feeling the angel slipping through his fingers, he reaches out and puts his hand on Castiel’s neck. Empowered by his costume, he feels free to drag his thumb up and down the stubbled skin. Cas swallows, a blush staining his skin.

They’re standing close now, closer than is proper, and Dean can feel the heat from Cas caressing him through their clothes. He stares into Castiel’s red-rimmed eyes and wants nothing more than to smooth the worry-lines from his face,

Something wavers. Dean can feel it like an almost tangible wave, washing over them in relief.

“I’ll follow you, Dean.”

 

* * *

 

Dean holds Castiel’s hand but avoids his wide eyes as they walk through the town. It feels incredibly intimate, showing the world that they are, and before long his hands turn sweaty and arousal pools in his gut (but never further south). Yet, no one gives them a second glance—to all appearances they are an all American couple—one male, one female. Just freakishly tall, is all.

He shows Cas how to hot-wire an old car flanked between two squat, grey buildings.

“Never the plastic shit, or the ones with toys or booster seats in it. Fluffy dice’s a universal go-ahead, though.”

Cas hangs onto his words, asking questions about the details, and reflects on the overall knowledge learned. He is so earnest that Dean takes him to a cornfield in the boonies, and teaches him to drive stick.

The Charger rabbit-hops and stalls more times than is good for an engine, but Cas is laughing and so is Dean and it’s fucking brilliant. The sun hangs hot and heavy, the tumultuous day settling into midday calm, when Cas shifts into third with minimal grinding of the gears.

It’s with a light heart that Dean swaps back into the driver’s seat and clasps Castiel’s hand between shifting gears. He fills Cas in on the Hindu chick curse, and Cas nods sagely.

“The pagans are unusual, but direct,” he comments, putting an emphasis on _unusual,_ as if the word leaves a strange taste in his mouth. “They often achieve their goals with little stress. Some in my garrison—Inias, for instance—found that refreshing in comparison to the politics of Heaven.”

They share the driving until a grumbling tummy from the passenger side reminds Dean of dinner, so they pull into some roadhouse that has a special on schnitzel burgers.

Cas looks gaunt, and Dean feels a pang of guilt. So he resolves to order double amounts until Cas is stuffed and glowing.

 _Ooh— local pies_. Blueberry—no, apple and pear would be his and Castiel’s to share tonight.

They sit down on disinfectant-scented pleather seats, Dean combing his hands through his fake hair self-consciously. He got it perfect this morning, but it was wont to rebel. Another thing he never realized about women. They must be _magicians._

Cas orders a coffee and a double bacon cheese schnitzel with fries. Dean orders the same, but with a cola. The waiter is suddenly silent, unusually so. He looks at Dean, draws his eyebrows together, and walks away through the Staff door.

Dean sends Cas a bewildered look, and Cas just shrugs. Eventually, their server comes back on the heels of a large plaid gorilla. Dean stiffens, and shoots a look at Cas. Cas relaxes some, but his hand still twitches near his sleeve. Dean’s own hand is in easy access of his holster. It is only as he brushes his padded chest that the light turns on. He doesn’t know how he forgot; he just got used to femininity, he supposes.

“Ah, you’re back,” Dean says through an affable and glossy smile. “I don’t think you got our food down. We want—”

“Get out,” interrupts Gorilla.

“I’m sorry?”

“This town. We don’t take your kind here.”

“Humans?” Cas shifts minutely at this.

“You know what you are,” spits Gorilla, and Dean has to be thankful that the man’s terrible body odor is spoiling his appetite—otherwise he’d be quite hungry _and_ annoyed. “Doin’ ya a favor. There’s a lot of folk who won’t take you so light.” He leans close, and Dean leans closer, matching the threat with a genial smile. “We only take God-fearin’ folk.”

“I can assure you there is very little that Dean fears,” says Cas, voice a low rumble. 

“Get out,” spits Gorilla. “Or you get thrown out.”

Cas looks like he wants to say something, or smite the man, but Dean silences him with a shake of his head. Dean puts the hat back on and adjusts his scarf with a measured flourish.

Just because he was now jiggling the wobbly up top. _Jerks,_ he thinks, and sashays out.

Cas follows him after a moment, his jaw set and his eyes flashing with anger. They bundle back into the Charger in moody silence. Cas doesn’t ask _why_ —he’s smarter than that. He has been human for the past few months, and before that observed humanity for millennia. He knows that society is constantly a bitch.

They end up pulling into a McDonalds. The cashiers are not paid well enough to muster enthusiasm, let alone care about a chick with a man’s voice.  They eat terrible greasy burgers on a table for four, burgers that don’t seem to fill them up, but Cas grunts and moans around his as if he’s eating the best thing ever.

“Meat,” Cas says around his mouthful. “I’ve missed meat so much.”

“Living on Ramen?”

“It’s a long way to the top if you wanna sausage roll,” says Cas with a wry smile, eyes twinkling.

Dean doesn’t know how to feel, knowing that Cas has been listening to ACDC without him. He likes the idea of showing Cas the wide world of food. “Oh man, I’ve gotta take you on the magical culinary tour, sous moi."

They hold hands on the tabletop, fingers smeared with oil and salt, and for a moment, it’s perfect.

 

* * *

 

“Wake up, angel,” says Dean, shaking him gently.

Cas drifts to the surface slowly. His hand reaches to Dean, but then halts. Dean finds his breath stolen, and moves.

 He kisses Cas slowly in the Bunker’s garage, hands balled up in Castiel’s less-than-crisp white shirt. Strong hands tremble as they cup his jaw and press in deeper. Dean can taste coffee and slick beef, but below that, is the essence of a cyanide-blue thunderstorm.

Castiel breaks the kiss, exiting the car too quickly. Dean’s stomach sinks.

“How did you know you were impotent?”

 _And shit,_ Dean can’t answer this. He swallows around the lump in his throat. He makes it to the entrance before he is spun around, pushed forcefully against the wall. Dean stares at a spot on the wall over his friend’s shoulder, body tense and unmoving.

“It wasn’t just masturbation. Was it?”

Dean drags his eyes up to meet Castiel’s.

“How many?” His voice is low and threatening.

“Three.”

The arms pinning him tighten almost painfully, then they’re gone, and so is Cas.

He almost punches a hole in the brick wall, but ends up sinking to the ground, back to the wall. He rips his scarf off instead, and pulls at the fabric with both hands until the hems rip. His mind is screaming, so he throws the material to the ground and wraps his arms round his legs.

He sits there for an age, frozen, wanting nothing more than to never face the world again.

 

* * *

 

Sam’s phone call finds Dean sitting in the lounge, having been kicked out of the study by Kevin. Wrapped in a throw, he eats ice cream out of the tub. Sam knows none of this, and Dean does not intend to set the scene.

“Make me a man, Sammy.”

“Ew. Dude, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” lies Dean around a particularly nasty case of brain freeze. “So, what’s the goss?”

“Doctor Prasad was wearing the most adorable pair of shoes. I think they were—“

“Ha bloody ha.”

“Most of it we kinda figured. You know, dress woman, act woman, be woman, become man. So just keep it up to get it up, really.”

“Most? What’s the rest?”

“Uh, most of it’s pretty vague.

“Use your words like a big boy, or I swear--”

“Dean! Jeez, touchy much? I’m coming down with the stuff for a summoning ritual. I have to make a detour for some of the ingredients, but I should be there by tomorrow morning.”

 

* * *

 

Dean is paused at the door of his bedroom. His and Castiel’s room. He has not seen Cas since, and it is entirely possible that Cas is behind the door. That or he is gone. _Gone_ gone. Dean doesn’t know which one is more likely, but he knows which one he deserves.

The gilt doorknob glints up at him, teasing.

The portal swings open suddenly. Like a cobra, a hand shoots out. With a grunt of surprise, the hand on his blouse tugs him inside. Unbalanced, Dean finds himself barreling into the bed. He looks up to Castiel looming over him, expression stormy.

“Is this going to happen again?” Cas growls.

Is Dean going to kick him out again? Be a jerk? A fuck-up? A _slut_? 

“Is _what_ going to happen? You gotta be specific.” Despite his words, his voice comes out low and broken.

For a moment Cas pauses. “I don’t know.” He admits. “Everything. It just—it _hurts_ , Dean. Wh- _why_ does it _hurt_?”

Dean’s heart fucking _aches._ “Humanity, man.”

“No.” Cas shakes his head. “I think it’s love.”

And just like that the floor seems to drop from under him. His breathing stops, his _heart_ fucking stops—hell, screw his body, the whole _world_ grounds to a halt.

There is no way of knowing how much time passes; by the time Dean remembers how to breathe Cas is sitting next to him on the bed, head in his hands. It is a classic symbol of self-loathing; so much so that Dean’s own timeless brand of self-hate wants to leap out and shake its hand.

“What do you need, Cas?”

“To stay.”

At that, something strengthens in Dean’s core, and he resolves to bargain with Ezekiel come morning. He needed his brother safe and well, but he needed Cas too.

“I’ll try to work something out.” It is not a promise, but it is the best he can do right now. Cas nods, sitting up straighter.

“And I need you.” His eyes catch Dean’s. “To be mine.” The eyes narrow. “No one else. Just… me.”

“I can do that. Oh Cas, I can do that.”

The kiss is sudden and Dean clings onto it like a lifeline. It starts like wildfire. Soon there are clothes being tossed around the room, and Dean knows tomorrow’s gonna be a treasure hunt for socks. There is a brief struggle with the skinny jeans; Cas takes the ends and Dean hands onto the headboard as he _pulls._ Cas ends up with his ass flat on the floor, and Dean can’t help the laugh that bubbles up. Cas lights up from the inside in the way that innocent way he does, and Dean can’t but help fall deeper in love.

A long, lithe body crawls onto his. The heat is scorching, the kisses burn and blister like flames. Cas licks a trail down south, nuzzling like a cat into the hairless skin below his belly button. A wicked grin is the only warning before Cas takes his prize into his hot, willing mouth. Oh-oh!

Oh _shit._

His junk is softer than a baby’s bum. “Fuck fuck fuck,” says Dean as he bangs his head against the pillow.

 _Hmm,_ Cas hums, the vibrations doing wicked things to Dean’s bones. Dean writhes, aroused but not _alive._ He gasps in relief when Cas pulls off, an evil smirk pulling at his lips.

Dean narrows his eyes in suspicion. Cas shrugs.

“Consider it payback,” he deadpans, and presses a quick kiss to Dean’s lips.

Okay, so maybe he deserved that. But then Cas moves south again, mouth hot and _evil._ Dean pulls at Castiel’s hair, tugs on his shoulders. _No no no no no_. He can feel himself on the edge, unable to make the final leap.

“More? Fuck!” Cas lathes around his balls with the same intense focus usually reserved for his eyes. Surely, he does not deserve this torture.

Cas merely hums again, and dips lower still. Dean’s got his hands twisted in the sheets as Cas grabs him by the back of his knees and lifts. A cushion is positioned under his rear and his legs are held spread towards Dean’s chest. Dean chokes out something midway between a moan and a sob when Cas, now settled down beneath his spread body, laps a curious tongue against his entrance.

The tongue lathes the area, teeth nip at the soft swell of his ass. It is torture, but Dean thought he _might_ survive so long as he didn’t—

Oh. _Oh_.

Dean’s aware he is making vaguely animalistic noises, and he’s sweating buckets, but Cas dives his tongue in anyway, working the muscle open. A spit-slick finger helps stretch Dean so the tongue can reach deeper, slick and blunt and oh so hot.

Cas pulls away, blowing shockingly cold air onto the area. Dean twitches but cannot do much more than that. He looks at Cas accusingly, and Cas returns him a shy smile.

“Are you a woman, Dean?”

‘No’ he nearly says, but remembers the curse and has to bite back a groan. “Yes.”

“Tim the UPS guy calls the female genitalia a ‘pussy’.” He’s got his finger working slowly in and out now, seemingly content to just tease Dean for now. “Do you like me playing with your pussy, Dean?”

Dean makes a strangled noise, a silent, internal battle waging inside him. He falls slack though when Cas deliberately jabs his prostate.

“Fucker,” says Dean in a hoarse voice.

“Yes, I believe I will be,” Cas muses, that wicked smile back. “Nora often discussed sex with me. I believe she assumed—rather correctly—that I was not sexually attracted to her. But it was enlightening conversation, I can remember that much.”

Cas bends back down, teasing the edge of Dean’s rim with his mouth. He pulls back enough to continue again, and Dean doesn’t know whether he should be grateful or not.

“For instance, did you know that females can struggle to reach orgasm during sexual intercourse? No matter what she does.” Dean feels his left hand being pulled to his crotch. It rests there as limp as his dick, but Cas gives a contented little nod.

“No matter what her partner does.” Cas scissors Dean open enough to flick against his prostate. Dean screams into his right hand.

“Apparently, the female can feel it there, right on the precipice of orgasm, but never…” He slurps Dean’s cock into his mouth. “Go over.” He says the final bit around Dean’s cock, and it takes a few seconds for Dean’s brain to decode it.

When he does, Dean cannot stop the scream that forces its way from his throat. Cas slaps a hand to Dean’s mouth, pulling his body up and flush against Dean’s as he does so. Dean stares into lust-blown eyes pleadingly.

“Kevin is nearby,” explains Castiel.

Slowly, Cas removes the hand, brushing a thumb over Dean’s lower lip. He slots their mouths together, kissing urgently. Dean kisses back lazily, too overcome to do anything else. When Cas pulls away, he is wearing a thoughtful squint.

“When I asked her why women would continue sexual intercourse in those conditions, her answer was simple.” Cas reaches over to the bedside table, and Dean can without looking tell he’s reaching for the lube. “The reason why they would continue though they cannot themselves—that time, at least—reach a climax.”

Cas looks deeply into Dean’s eyes. Dean feels like he has dived into the inky pools and is drowning in an ocean deeper than Time himself. There’s the wet sound of Cas slicking himself up, then Dean feels his friend’s cock resting at his entrance.

“She said they do it because they wanted to. For their partners’ pleasure.” The pressure there against him increases. “For love.” As he says these words, Castiel breeches him.

Dean finds he can do little more than gasp and clutch on to the fallen angel.

“Though,” Cas continues, “I don’t expect you to fake an orgasm. You won’t pretend to reach climax, would you, my Dean?”

Dean buries his face into Castiel’s hair, making small shaking movements. He untangles a hand from the bed sheets and uses it to angle Castiel’s head up so their lips can meet. They move together in small, rocking motions. Castiel reaches deep inside Dean; it is not long before he starts moving in a primal rhythm, one seated deep in lust and humanity.

Dean is nearly sobbing around the pleasure; he feels a little better when he digs his nails sharply into Castiel’s smooth skin, and Castiel’s breath hitches in pain.

Cas never stops kissing him though, trailing soft caressing lips around his jaw, his nose, his forehead and cheeks, and keep into his mouth. A hand finds his and they lock together, Dean pushing up to meet Cas on each thrust.

It doesn’t take long for Cas to be thrown into an erratic, near primal rhythm. He thrusts once, twice, then stills, joined flush together. He is shaking. It does not take long for his quivering limbs to give up and collapse onto Dean.

A wave of contentment washes over Dean, startling in its clarity. He feels light, as if he experienced an orgasm vicariously through his partner. With gentle hands, he strokes the sweat-dampened hair from Castiel’s brow. He presses a soothing kiss to a cooling temple and rearranges their limbs into a more comfortable position.

Cas makes a happy grunt, and molds his body around Dean’s.

Sleep comes quickly that night, even if Dean did not.

 

* * *

 

If sleep came quickly and Dean not at all, then the morning arrived straddled sometime in between.

Dean has got Ezekiel cornered in a room off the kitchen. The room itself is full of weird and terrible taxidermy. He stands in front of a griffin to be dramatic. Sam had arrived back not ten minutes ago, ambling in at an easy 11:45.

“One month then.”

“Once again, I must refuse. The angels—“

“The angels are too busy fucking with each other to care about Cas.”

“He felled heaven—that is no little feat. Do you want your brother to be in danger?”

“From whom, huh? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the one with the full house and a sword up your ass. I’m not asking for forever. You think the angels might find him and smite everyone—well, that ain’t gonna happen. He’s spent a month in one spot before this, and you know who found him? No one!”

Of course, Dean is lying about the last part, but that’s only because one whackadoodle medic dick doesn’t count. Ezekiel purses his lips.

“Castiel is not to be trusted.”

“Well I trust him more than I trust you.” Dean is warming up, now. His hands perch on his skirt-clad hips and he stands tall. “He vouched for you. He rebelled for us. Stopped the Apocalypse. He’s pretty tough for a nerd angel. But he’s human now. We gotta help him, get him on his feet—teach him how to do human stuff. I don’t give a fuck about your reservations.

You just gotta trust my feminine intuition on this. It’s gonna be fine.” As Ezekiel continues his silence, Dean decides to grab the bull by the proverbial horns. “Two weeks. That’s my final offer. You don’t want to see his ugly mug? Fine, just take a quiet vacation in the depths of Sammy’s noggin.”

Ezekiel does a bitchface—one not belonging to Sam, and it looks weird—but he nods. Dean holds out his hand and they shake.

“You do know you are not officially female.” Ezekiel squints at him curiously, and Dean can feel the judgment roll off him in waves.

“Shut it, dickwad. You know what? It’s good to be queen!”

 

* * *

 

Later that day they stand inside an abandoned warehouse and summon Bahuchara Mata. The summoning ritual complete, they wait while the building groans, scaffolding shuddering under unnatural winds.

Suddenly, there is an explosion of feathers— _chicken feathers—_ anda short Indian woman appears behind them. She is dressed in snakeskin boots and a holstered sword sits with its hilt over her right shoulder.

“You rang?” she drawls in a thick accent, eyes unblinking.

“You know who I am.” Dean walks up to her, stopping a few feet away.

She rotates her head slowly to one side, like every freaky possessed child in every horror movie, ever. “I do.”

“Then lift the curse.”

She grins, showing teeth. “Wh—“

She is interrupted by Cas creeping up behind her. He is close, weapon poised. For a brief second, Bahuchara Mata appears like a snake, hissing as she recoils. In a quick movement, the stake is in her hand, wrenched cruelly from Castiel’s grip. The moment over, she flicks Castiel on his ass with a manicured hand.

“Don’t be rude, now. We were having so much fun. I hardly deserve death for my pastimes.”

“You humiliate men. Castration, impotence—” begins Sam, hand twitching towards where he has a stake. Bahuchara Mata interrupts him.

“I am peaceful compared to my kin. I don’t kill—not when the psychological is so interesting.” She looks faintly bored. In a flash, her hooded eyes turn to Dean. “You’re the most fun I’ve hand in centuries. Why would I want to give that up?”

“I’ve played by your stupid rules. Congratulations, you’ve made Dean Winchester a chick. Pay up, bitch.”

Bahuchara Mata clicks her tongue. “You have learned much, Dean. But is it enough?”

“It was enough to lift the curse off Bapiya,” argues Sam.

At this, the goddess looks faintly annoyed. “I _hate_ precedent. Fine.” She snaps her fingers, and Dean feels a tingle in his crotch. She tips an invisible hat, and then disappears in another explosion of chicken feathers.

They stand in silence for a few seconds. Sam coughs, and spits out a feather. Finally Dean claps his hands together.

“Right. Let’s go home. I can’t friggin wait to start wearing my real clothes again.” In a softer voice, so Sam would not hear, he whispers in Castiel’s ear. “Wanna find out if the curse is really lifted?”

Cas pupils dilate, and he places a subtle hand on Dean’s rear.

“I’ll drive,” he says loudly, and Dean can’t find it in him to argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bahuchara Mata is a genuine figure in Hindu mythology. I have tried to be as true to her legend and symbols as possible. I am by no means an expert on her, but I did do research.
> 
> The story of Bapiya is unchanged. Yes, in the legend she really did make him dress and act as a woman to lift an impotency curse. Her followers are mostly peaceful, though she used to get animal sacrifices. Her specialties are castration and enforced transvestitism. I am not sure, but it appears to be an early exploration of matriarchy and psychological notions of societal gender. She also rides a rooster (*snort* cock), which symbolizes purity. And the symbol of her vehicle is a two headed snake.
> 
> Seriously, one interesting chick.


	15. Day 15- In a Different Style, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About three things I was absolutely positive: First, Dean was a Demon. Second, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how dominant that part might be - that thirsted for blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
> 
> (A _Twilight_ spoof. )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original prompt, "In a different clothing style", is tricky since (like a few others) it is clearly meant for a visual rendition, and not for a literary response. So I’ve answered it in a different literary style—in this case, a spoof of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. 
> 
> Copyright warning: I take some passages direct, others are paraphrased, and few are an actual attempt of emulating her style. It’s just too… spacey and dull. 
> 
> This is not an ode to Meyer, it is meant as an over the top spoof.

The death of Dean Winchester had come as a shock.

It was to heaven that I had exiled myself — an action that I took with great horror. I detested Heaven.

I loved the mortal plane. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. The snow and the creeping shadows. I loved the vigorous, sprawling hive of life.

So I descended back to earth. I drove from Heaven’s gates to Lebanon, Kansas in an old junker I hot-wired with a screwdriver.

I found myself wandering in the forest behind the bunker. It was raining. I didn't see it as an omen — just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.

I looked now at a horrible, horrible soul, black and twisted. It undulated under a beautiful, well-loved face.

I'd  given much thought to how I would die — I'd had reason enough in the last few months — but I had not imagined it like this.

I stared without breathing across the misted forest air, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.

 “I know what you are,” I whispered.

“Say it.”

“A demon.”

We fell silent.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

I turned to face him. Raindrops glinted in his perfect hair. His eyes are an inky black. Both faces solid marble.

“No.”

“You should be,” he challenged.  

"I decided it didn't matter," I whispered.

"It didn't matter?" His tone made me look up — I had finally broken through his carefully composed mask. His beautiful, hideous face was incredulous, with just a hint of the anger I'd feared.

"No," I said softly. "It doesn't matter to me what you are."

A hard, mocking edge entered his voice. "You don't care if I'm a monster? If I'm not human!"

He was silent, staring straight ahead again. His well-proportioned face was bleak and cold.

"You're angry," I sighed. "I shouldn't have said anything."

The hunter stalked forward. I held my ground. The blade glinted, dripping with rain.

He moved quickly, his black draconic wings a mockery of an angel’s. Their like have been seen only once before, on Lucifer’s first – Cain.

I didn't move. I didn’t expect the kiss. But I returned it all the same.

About three things I was absolutely positive: First, Dean was a Demon. Second, there was a part of him — and I didn't know how dominant that part might be — that thirsted for blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.


	16. Day 16- Morning Ritual, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Recipe.

 “A Morning Ritual”

_(serves three)_

Ingredients:

  *          Dean Winchester
  *          Castiel
  *          Sam Winchester
  *          1 x Bed
  *          2 x Toothbrushes
  *          2 x Pea-sized lumps of Toothpaste
  *          3 x Mugs of Coffee
  *          3 x Bowls of Cereal (whatever is at hand)



 Method:

  1.    Wake your partner (either Dean Winchester or Castiel) by squeezing them tight. This will prolong your own sleep and keep you comfortable while your partner grumbles.
  2.    Kiss your partner several times. Ignore the morning breath. Love transcends morning breath. But a bladder does not.
  3.    Crawl out of the warm cocoon of blankets and snuggles. This might be difficult, so persevere.
  4.    Vacate your bladder into the toilet. Take longer than necessary preening in the mirror; do this for at least five minutes, or until the door has achieved a light beating.
  5.    Squeeze one pea-sized lump of toothpaste onto toothbrush. Wet it, and place into mouth. Use brisk circular motions to clean all teeth. Spit and repeat.
  6.    Pinch partner’s bum as you vacate the bathroom. If a pinch is unavailable, a slap will do as substitute. Your partner will proceed to replicate steps 3 through 5 on his own.
  7.    Greet Sam Winchester. A “hello” or a perfunctory grunt will do. If he replies, skip to step 9; if not, resume to the next step.
  8.    Brew a mug of coffee. Place in front of Sam Winchester. Repeat this step until he produces an acknowledgement.
  9.    Brew two mugs of coffee. Season to taste.
  10.    Greet lover with kiss. At this, your partner should turn a rosy color. If not, repeat this step until an even, pink blush glows across his skin.
  11.    Pour out your own individual bowl of cereal. Ensure to hog all the milk. This will increase the manly bonding.
  12.    Eat with one hand entwined in your partner’s.
  13.    Enjoy.




	17. Day 17- Spooning, General

“I’ll be the little spoon.”

“No, I will be the little spoon.”

Somehow, their first night back together wasn’t ending how they imagined it would.

“Your wings are all bony and lumpy.”

“I’m fallen. You were excited by them a few hours ago, Dean.”

“That was before they stuck in my face.”

“We shall swap, then.”

“Fine.”

They roll over until Castiel has his front tucked into Dean’s back. Tense minutes tick by.

“Your wings smell like sulfur.”

“Deal with it, feathers.”

“What big horns you have.”

“All the better to poke you with, my angel.”

“Swap.”

“No.”

Castiel rolls onto his back. After a moment, Dean does too. The air is tense. The sounds of soft breathing and the subtle movements of wings gentle it by fractions – until in that hot, summers night, two hands meet in the void between them.

An angel and a demon fall asleep with hands clasped together, unwilling to let go now.

When morning comes, they have moved to hold one another. Not to spoon, as they used to; instead they curl into each other, chest to chest, hands clutching each others’ wings.


	18. Day 18- Raising a Baby Together, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three irresponsible men and a baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is perhaps the craziest idea I've ever had. The prompt was originally "Doing something together." Ha.
> 
> Hopefully people know what I mean by flour baby. I seem to remember needing the concept explained to me some years ago; if I haven't introduced it well enough in the tale, please let me know and I'll review it.

“We should have a baby,” Dean said one day.

“Is that wise?” asked Castiel.

“Probably not,” admitted Dean.

“How about a flour baby?” Sam butted in, floppy hair poking around the doorframe.

* * *

This was how they found themselves in the baking aisle in Walmart.

“Would our child be self-raising or plain?”

Castiel shook his head from where he was looking at the corn flour. “What is self-raising? Sounds independent. Would we need to raise it less?”

He picked up the mentioned pound of flour, and studied it. “According to the label, it would appear self-raising assists with the rising of baked goods, like yeast or baking soda would when mixed with plain flour. I am afraid it would be just as dependent as plain flour in regards to development.”

“No child of ours would be run of the mill plain.”

“I quite agree. Home brand?”

“Are you crazy? This is a child, not a price tag. Take that prissy stuff near the top.”

“Organic? I thought you had opinions on the subject.”

“Sam would ream me a new one if we didn’t.”

“What are your thoughts on gluten-free?”

“Intolerant of it.”

“Wholemeal?”

“Is that a joke?”

“I suppose it does sound too ominous.”

They settled on self-raising wheat flour and took it home strapped in a second-hand car seat.

* * *

 

Their flour-baby sat in a highchair, since both thought mornings were too early for child handling.

“He looks like an Inias.”

“ _She_ looks like a Mary.”

“Sam. This baby is clearly a trans male. Agree with me if you want my help with translating that cuniform.”

“It’s a girl! Sorry Cas!” Sam’s voice called from the library. Dean preened, grinning. Castiel slumped.

“I suppose it needs to find its own gender,” Castiel allowed. “But this means I get to name it.”

“No way.”

* * *

“Come along Mary-ellen Sariel Solo Gabrielle Azraeliaphia Samantha Winchester.”

Dean turned off the phone alarm, picked her up and slung her snug to his side in a violet papoose. “Who needs a diaper change, huh? CAS!”

“I did it last time—it’s your turn! I’m knitting her a sweater!”

“It’s summer! Sam?”

“Uncle favors are maxed out!”

“Well I’ve got to go to the loo.”

With a sigh, Castiel placed down his needles and green wool. He took the dressed-up bag of flour from his lover’s arms and marched off to the changing table.

“The joke’s on him, Mariel,” Castiel muttered, out of earshot. “Though only able to take female vessels, Azraeliaphia considered herself a male.”

* * *

“We’re not taking the baby on a hunt, Dean.”

“We can’t leave her here!”

“We’ll get a babysitter.”

“For a bag of flour? Sure, that’s gonna go down well.”

“For two weeks she’s our child. We’ll work it out.”

* * *

“Fairies man. Freaking Fairies!”

“Where are they?” Sam swung around blindly with the iron bar, Mary clutched precariously under one arm. Castiel was knocked down, pinned by a dozen tiny, strong arms.

“To the left! Your other left!” Dean stomped down on a fairy halfway to a sewing needle and swung his iron sword towards the butterfly nightshade portal.

“I can’t do it—quick, grab Mary!” Sam tossed Mary high toward his brother.

“No!” screamed Dean.

But it was too late – his sword swung into the air at the same time as the flour baby entered it. The sharp, gleaming edge sliced into Mary’s side. Her innards flew over the room, splattering the three men.

The worlds was silent for a moment. Then, a fairy bit Castiel’s ear, and the battle resumed. The men fought twice as fiercely, revenge set deep into their hearts.

* * *

Sam suggested they bake her into a cake. “Honor her. It would be like reincarnation.”

“We are not going to cannibalize our child,” said Castiel at the same time Dean shrieked: “We’re not eating a baby!”

And so, they gathered around a small grave, one foot squared, six-foot deep.

Sam began the proceedings. “We gather here today to mourn the passing of Mary-ellen—”

“Mariel,” interrupted Castiel.

“—Sariel Solo Gabrielle Azraeliaphia Samantha Winchester. Though not with us for long, she touched us in many ways. Dean, would you like to say a few words?”

“Well baby, you came into our lives as an experiment, to test our daddy-skills. And yeah, you tested them. Son of a bitch, you tested them. But you taught us much and—” Dean stopped, unable to continue, his voice cracking toward the end. Castiel pulled an empathetic arm around his lover.

Salt was sprinkled into the grave, followed by lighter fluid. All three of them threw in a lit match, and said their final goodbyes.

* * *

Around the table that night, the three men sat in pensive silence. Finally, Dean spoke, his fingers stroking the half-finished knitted sweater.

“I guess we’re not meant to be dads.”

“You guys lasted over a week. That’s not bad for a first attempt, right?” Sam tried to buoy the spirits.

“Sam is right. We can always try again.”

“More flour?”

“I was thinking of something more flesh and bone.”

They contemplated this for a minute.

“A real child?”

Castiel shrugged. Dean kissed him on the cheek. He pulled back as a thought came to him.

“Somehow I don’t think Walmart stocks those.”

“...We’ll work it out.”


	19. Day 19- In Formal Wear, General/Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief headcanon on a current plot-hole.

“Guys. How did we get an invitation to the FBI ball?”

“I wasn’t aware the FBI had balls.”

“Oh ha ha, Dean.”

Sam is going through their mail, picked up from a postal box in Illinois. They have several around the country— thankfully, most things could be done via technology. However, some items needed to be physically mailed, so the snail mail system stayed.

Dean and Castiel look for the most part unimpressed. Although, that could be the post-hunt aches talking.

Sam looks at their bored faces, and snaps his fingers in front of them. “But we’re not real FBI!”

“Do you think it could be a trap?” asks Cas around a mug of black coffee.

Sam nods. “What else could it be?”

Dean speaks. “There’s gonna be free food, though. Right?”

Sam does a double take.

“I could wear a suit.” Castiel sounds pleased.

“You’re not wearing that ugly ass plaid tie.”

“It’s dignified.”

“It’s _Hannibal.”_

“I don’t believe the Carthaginian ever wore such a garment.”

As such, Dean and Castiel agree to go, while Sam waits disbelievingly in the wings for backup should it be required.

* * *

Seeing Castiel in a tailored tux was a true boner moment. He subtly readjusts himself, and stands.

“You look nice, Dean.”

“Yeah? You too, buddy.”

Dean has to tie up the ex-angel’s bowtie. Pressed close like that he can feel the man’s hot exhales on his neck. His fingers are unsure as he fastens the knot, his eyes fixed on Castiel’s collar. He can hear Castiel swallow, a hollow and muted sound, then a hand rests on his lower back, anchoring him in place.

Dean leans forward and plants a small, open-mouthed kiss on his neck, breathing in soap and cheap cologne.

* * *

They weave through the milling crowd of suits and stilettos in search of booze. Dean spots a tray of garlic knots – the only thing he is able to identify – and swivels to nick one. In the process, he bumps into a very familiar face. He casts around for a name for an embarrassingly long moment, when it comes to him.

Amelia Novak.

She wears the poise of a strong woman – stronger than he remembers. Her dress is understated but elegant, conservative in length, and her hair coiffed. She seems entirely unsurprised to see him.

He says the first thing that pops into his mouth. “You’re FBI?”

“Dean Winchester. And where is your brother, Sam? And— oh. Hello.”

Amelia seems to stumble slightly as she takes her fill of Castiel, who reappeared having pressed his way through a block of septuagenarians. Castiel inclines his head in greeting. Her hand rises as if to reach out and touch, but at the last moment, she remembers herself. Her hand drops back to her side, where it hangs limp beside midnight blue satin. Dean feels that old Jimmy Novak guilt wash over him.

“This, was this you?”

The icebreaker works. Amelia looks amused, her small mouth quirking upwards. “You never wondered why the FBI has been kept off your tail for so long?”

“…No,” said Dean, even as Castiel said, “It has been odd.”

At Dean’s _look_ , Castiel extrapolates. “I read the FBI guidelines one night in a shelter. Sam’s hair is not regulation length, for one. It is unreasonable to think the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be blind to our activities, especially when they were once so diligent.”

Dean shakes his head and pushes past the distraction. “So that was you? You some kind of head honcho?”

Amelia’s fingers brush over the stem of her champagne flute. “I am not a head of anything, nor am I a field agent… I am in a _strategic_ position though. And a handful in enforcement knows what you do, so I’ve had _help_.”

“Well. Thank you, I guess. But, uh why?”

“You mean ‘why’ as in ‘why would I help the men who stole my husband, got my best friends killed and nearly took my daughter away while Jimmy lay bloody and dying on the floor?’”

Castiel blinks in sympathy. “If it’s any consolation, this vessel is empty now. Has been since my first death some years ago. Jimmy is at rest in an eternal Thursday in Heaven.”

A few moments strain past wherein Dean winces, Amelia is silent, and Castiel places what he must think is a consoling hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off, blinking rapidly.

“Jimmy’s dead?”

“Yes. I believe the expression is ‘as a door—”

Dean cuts him off with a quick kick to the leg. Amelia stares off into the crowd for a few moments.

“…oh. Um. Thank you for letting me know. It’s not _nice_ to know, but… I get the sentiment. I think. Uh, you were asking why? Right?”

Dean nods. Castiel does his squint/head-tilt. Amelia gulps down her champagne inelegantly. She unlocks her lips from the rim of the glass, and gives them a quelling look, perhaps finding strength in the bottom of the drink.

“I looked into your case. Cases. Your work, if one can call it that. The number of deaths you guys have racked up is uh, _impressive_. I figured the tax payers’ money was a lost cause in chasing after you. I tweaked a few things and… Congratulations, you three are an unofficial official part of the FBI.”

“They think we are Mulder and Scully?” Amelia smiles somewhat shakily, the analogy apt. Castiel smiles back at her, and she falters. Dean continues, caught in the flow: “Wait, does this mean we can get paid? Amelia? Hey!”

But Amelia chose that moment to duck away with a flourish of her skirts. Though she covers it well, she looks overwhelmed. Dean is about to chase after her, when Castiel stops him with a hand to his arm.

“Did I… upset her?” he asks, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Y’know, I actually think it did her some good to see you. Might not realize it yet, but um… Come on. Let’s get some fancy feast on a cracker. I think I saw mini burgers…”

Castiel perks up, but he is still wary. “Maybe. So long as you take me dancing after.”

“…Deal.”


	20. Day 20- Dancing, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And if you listen very hard  
> The tune will come to you at last.  
> When all are one and one is all  
> To be a rock and not to roll.

The waltz has at its foundations a box pattern. The box has four walls, half a stride wide, which the feet trace in a regular rhythm.

When Dean taught Castiel how to dance, he led him to a cleared space and put on the old gramophone, to get into the groove. The Beatles’ _Twist and Shout_ announced itself, but as it was too upbeat, Dean shuffled through and found something chill with a four/four tempo.

 _One_ two three four. _One_ two three four.

The opening chords to Zep’s _Stairway to Heaven_ echoed oddly in the room, but the cavernous walls lent it a strange sort of beauty.

To learn the dance, one starts alone. Start on an invisible line and step forward. Elegantly drag the other leg diagonal to place it half a stride beside the other. Step back. Drag and place. This is the foundation. It does not take long to pass this step.

Dean was no dancer, but Cas is even worse. Dean took a few moments remembering his own steps, and then a few more working out how to demonstrate them. There were misplaced feet and jolted beats undercut by sheepish smiles.

The next step is learning to hold your partner. Hand to the small of the back, and theirs to the waist and a shoulder. The trick is to lead well, with firm guiding movements. Strong. Smoother than oil. This is arguably half the dance.

They liked the way they could hold each other close, sliding with purpose and synergy. There existed in that dance something akin to fighting. Knowing the moves, a rhythmic pace. Something they do together.

The box formation rotates then.

Crisscrossed legs bumped into each other, before the song’s energetic climax upset the rhythm. The beat lay hidden, and after a few moments of restraint, they could find it again. Dean could imagine years from now putting on something slow. Maybe _Hey Jude._ Their weathered faces would blur into one, shuffling about in the kitchen in a dance as familiar as their bones.

Leading requires unspoken communication. There is no such thing as a follower. In a true waltz, both parties will lead one another, only as strong as its other half.

As the song wound down, the final chords strumming out with a melancholic voice, they slowed to a beat felt only in their hearts – as clichéd as that may be.

Sometimes a waltz involves the blind leading the blind, but that’s okay. So long as you have vision.


	21. Day 21- Cooking/Baking, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a scene in _Weekend at Bobby’s_ (episode 6.04).

Sam looks around the storeroom where he is holed up. Its shelves are stocked with haphazard boxes labeled with stuff like “Giant Toenails” and “Acne of Worrywart”. The trapdoor above him is keeping him secret for now, but its rusted hinges are not going to provide much protection if the Bunyip decides to stomp too heavily on the floor above.

He whips out his phone. “Dean,” he whispers as soon as he hears his brother’s gruff voice on the other end. “I found the Bunyip. What do I do?”

There is some rustling on the other side, and when Dean answers, it comes out garbled.

“Hang … noarl … eez its…”

Sam steps on a stool and gains one reception bar. “I can’t hear you!” he hisses.

BANG BANG SNARL goes the Bunyip above him.

“Cas and I are making creamy passion…”

Sam can’t quite tell by the static in the phone if Dean was cut off. Contextually, he decides he must have been. Unless Dean and Cas had upped the eye-fucking.

“What?” he asks in a stage whisper. He slips off the stool and carries it to set it down softly in another corner of the room. Another reception bar blinks into existence.

“You want a slice when you get home?”

Sam thinks he shows considerable restraint by merely lifting his eyebrows. There is an innuendo in there, and the more he thinks of it, the worse it gets.

“What? Slice? Of what?”

Dean’s voice comes out slow and placating. “Creamy passionfruit pie.”

‘I’M TRAPPED IN A CELLAR I AM HIDING FOR MY LIFE WHY WON’T YOU HELP ME’ is what Sam thinks he is going to say. Instead, what comes out is, “Gluten free?”

“Hell no!” Sam winces.

GRRRR CRASH BANG ARGH!

The Bunyip knocks something over upstairs with a large smash, clearly annoyed at being contained within _Staff Only_ section of an Apothecary– the only way out through a nice steel door that Sam would really like to be on the other side of right about now.

“So some help might be good right about now,” he mentions, casually as possible.

There’s something on the other end that sounds suspiciously like giggling and a ‘Heya Cas’.

“Right,” says Dean. “Cas has the Bunyip Knockout recipe now.”

“Why don’t you and Cas zap over here and we can perform it together?” he suggests.

There is a gasp on the other side. “We can’t leave the pie! It’s at a critical stage!”

Sam pulls the phone away from his ear, and takes a good long look at it. A small part of him had thought he would never see the day when he came second to pie.

“Right,” he says, as the Bunyip rips a loud one. “I’m in a storeroom with magical ingredients. Brewing something up and incapacitating a huge snarling wendigo-like beast on my own should be a piece of cake.”

“Glad you see it that way,” Dean says absently. There is a muffled noise, and something that sounds like ‘Mmm that’s hot’ and ‘Use the oil like _this.’_ Sam keeps a forcible rein on his unruly imagination.

“Right. Two crushed handfuls of ghost gum sap.”

He finds it wedged between “ghost gum leaves” and “ghost saliva”. He crushes the brittle amber between his hands into a small empty bowl.

“Oh man,” says Dean, suddenly. "You should see Cas; he’s got batter in his hair. It looks like…”

“DEAN!”

Upstairs turns suspiciously quiet. A cool sweat pricks across his neck.

“Sorry man. Teaspoon of witchetty grub. Pinch of wattle flower.”

The wattle flowers make him sneeze. Loudly. A creak from above belies the location of the Bunyip to be just above the trapdoor.

“Bone shavings of a foreign tribesman.”

Sam looks at the dead proprietor. The man had brought the monster here from Australia and tried to tame the Bunyip but it - rather predictably - turned on him and the townsfolk at the local swimming hole. Sam had wondered how one even goes about getting a monster through customs.

He had led Sam, bleeding profusely from the massive claw gashes in his stomach, into his room. And then promptly died in Sam’s arms. Sam looks at the man, then at his bowie knife, and winces.

“Drizzle with eucalyptus oil.”

SMASH!

The Bunyip crashes through the trapdoor, sending down with it a blizzard of splinters. Sam grabs the oil and sloshes it over the concoction. He throws the recipe, bowl and all, at the monster’s chest. It growls, unheeded, and stalks towards him.

“And sear it with fire.”

The Bunyip pounces as Sam wrestles his lighter from its place in his jacket pocket. Talons, yellowed and bloodstained, extend mid-air, ready to rip open its prey. He manages to duck to one side, monster clawing through a dozen herb boxes instead, and tosses the lit zeppo towards it.

There is a moment of fire, spreading fiercely from a brown, sunken chest, then an almighty crash as the monster topples to the ground, dazed and blackened with soot.

Sam picks up his phone from it had been flung during the fight and presses it to one ear. There are soft, slick noises coming from the other end.

“So,” he says, and the other end crackles to life.

“Sammy! Are you alright?”

This appeases Sam somewhat. “Yeah,” he says. “Do I salt and burn it, now?”

“Stab it through the left eye with a numbat bone, uh three times. Then, yeah. Salt and burn the son of a bitch.”

“What are you doing anyway?” The soft moist sounds haven’t eased up at all.

“Uh, making the creamy topping.”

“Oh,” says Sam. “Save me a slice, then.”


	22. Day 22- In battle, side by side, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They would with words darker than their wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie: this was a hard one to write. Dean and Castiel together in battle is one of my favourite things to visualise. Oh, they would be so grand together! The times they have fought together have been a little anti-climatic or fast in the show, imo. But a real battle ohhh. I can see it pictorially, but not textually. So, I hacked into the wall and ended up chipping out this philosophical mess. Inspired by Alter Bridge's album _Fortress_.

Dean often dreams of battle, fighting side by side with the light to his darkness beyond the mortal plane. Both use their blades like limbs, sharp biting claws and teeth. Blows fall quickly and without artifice, quick to fell the fools. Those who dare to defy the innocent would watch with eyes that clouded in terror, their soul or grace trembling universes shattered in the wake of a merged supernova.

They would move together in dance, the two warrior Kings, until they blur the boundaries of Heaven and Hell. Both planes are giants—vast and occupying opposing ends of the spectrum. So when their leaders join they would encompass the world— a tall, crushing body of ocean washing pure water and bracken into every blackened and righteous pore, stinging and scrupulous.

Together they exist as a literal symposium of dark and light, battered and tortured but forever a champion of humanity’s pure light. Humanity burns throughout life and death, a torch fuelled by greed and ignorance but burning with innocence and expectation. This torch they carry as the guardians of humanity is heavy, weighted down with millennia of black history, present and hope; even with Sam Winchester it burdens them. Those who wish to snuff the good peoples’ light would see this pain and relentless struggle as an advantage, but instead it leads to their downfall. For though humanity’s light is cold and burns it brings them joy to know that there exists something in the planes worth carrying a torch for.

There is none that can reach the Kings of the realms, and none to overcome them. They burn at the heart of a blizzard and turn the world herself. Joined, they are older than the restless moving of the plates beneath Earth’s crust, younger than a snowflake in the sun, and guardians of an innocence brighter than the stars in the crisp desert sky.

In battle, side by side, Castiel and Dean would fight for humanity with words darker than their wings.

When Dean surfaces from his dreams of war, darkness continuing to pulsate behind his soot-blackened eyes, trepidation weighs down his awakening movements. The King of Heaven – _his_ angel – lies beside him: an abomination, the fiercest King of Hell. Castiel is his wisdom and his strength, not the thoughts of battle that swim in darkness.

But in the morning light, with knowing eyes glowing blue with grace, Castiel smiles something sharp and fierce. Thoughts, black and terrible pulse between them, shared and acknowledged, but restrained. They are granted an outlet through a true comrade with whom to lay siege when needed as protectors. The fantasies recede, pulled back along the minds’ shore. They lie in wait within their very core, ready for a time when a battle calls her song, pining for a wave to wash over the disenchanted.

Into the dream may Dean fall, until Castiel takes his darkness and marbles it with light, and of just war.


	23. Day 23- Arguing, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finding the right one.

Sometimes their fights were Apocalyptic.

Sometimes, they ended with broken bones and spirits.

A lot of the time, they arose from not communicating, icy hearts longing for their other half, but too stubborn to do otherwise.

Then there were times like these:

“Christ Cas, just pick one.”

Castiel shoots Dean a measured glare. “I am attempting to, Dean.”

Dean grabs a random apple from the display. “This one. Look, this one’s good, right?”

Castiel takes the apple and analyses it critically. He turns it over with his hands, sniffs it, tests the stem spin ratio, then tosses it in the air and catches it with a hollow _thunk_. Dean is rolling his eyes, but Castiel speaks before he can interject.

“This one has been polished using someone’s handkerchief. Their snotty handkerchief, Dean.”

“Well wash it!” Dean is tapping his foot, eyes darting about the market.

“With what? And why should I when I can pick the right one?” Castiel turns back to his inspection. He picks one up, sniffs it, and realizes it smells unsettlingly like the bananas, as if it had traveled in the same cart.

“What was wrong with that one?” Dean whines when Castiel puts that apple down.

“It was not pleasing to my olfactory sense,” he snaps.

“Just pick one!”

“No!”

“Just grab one so I can go.”

Castiel narrows his eyes, discounting four more apples for their uneven, pocked skin, and three for a bitter scent.

“You’re never gonna find a right one.”

“I did with you!”

Such arguments are small, easily made up, easily forgotten, but never unappreciated.


	24. Day 24- Making Up Afterwards, Teen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Includes dialogue from "The End" (5x04) and [its draft.](http://hidefan.tumblr.com/post/6426482739/you-have-to-love-ben-edlund-and-misha-of-course)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long hiatus. I moved countries and things got a little hectic. Not updating daily, but on a hopefully regular schedule.

Twenty-fourteen is a darkly strange place.

Dean steps through the fault lines of razor wire and coke cans, wary and jaded, hairs prickling and gun hand alert. Squalid, squat buildings crumbled like moldy feta onto a cracked concrete plate. The very smell of it strikes like lightning into the blackened earth upon which once stood the crowning achievements of humanity. Until—

There, clawed in ragged script into smoke-stained bricks with blood old and peeling is the word “Croatoan”. It stands as a monument of the time, a message, a warning, and an explanation — Dean looks upon this, and knows this to be The End.

~~

There was a fight. There is always a fight.

He thinks about his brother cast out on his own, unmoored in the mists of his own apocalyptic world now long past, and tries to drum up some anger. Instead, as he hotwires a junker and gets grease like old blood on his hands, all he feels is remorse.

Though there’s guilt in there too. He sits stubbornly in his mind as the tarmac opens out in front of the wheel, and tries to justify that he needed to be alone. From everyone.

Including Cas.

Well, he got that wish all right.

~~

“Oh, you’ll get back – all in good time.” Zachariah pauses to draw out the moment with a long slow breath, air rasping unnecessarily through his borrowed lungs. “We want you to marinate a bit.”

Dean takes his eyes off the road and shoots Zachariah’s moon-sallow face a _look_ when all he wants to do is shoot him with something much crueler. “Marinate?”

“Three days, Dean,” Zachariah states while sounding altogether too somber, something sadistic and gleeful eddying under the meatsuit. “Three days to see where this course of action takes you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”                                                                                          

Angel-grace bubbles under his flabby surface, yet all that’s there to announce it is a static charge in the air. It’s like every angel dick when they try to prove their power, pushing at the seams to try to awake a primal fear. Dean might as well be afraid of a storm in a teacup. It’s nothing like Cas. Cas never tries to push at his own seams, it just happens and therein lies the difference.

Cas exudes power without trying, but Zachariah finishes his asshat speech with all the grace of a try-hard.

“It means that your choices have consequences.”

~~ 

His future self has stress lines around his eyes, a corrugated brow, and tugged-down corners in his mouth. They make him look shadowed and angry, in a starved sort of way. All at once he’s hungry, starved and overfull, and if it were not for the resemblance Dean would be muttering a _christo_. He walks with swagger Dean knows all too well – he pulls back a wince and shakes his head.

“You never tried to find him?” Because maybe he’d misunderstood. Misheard. Because the thought that he would give up on his little brother is so impossible that it’s hard for his mind to lock onto it and accept it as _fact_.             

“We got other people to worry about.”

He thinks of baby rusting by the fence and wonders when this place would start making sense.

~~

Apparently Dean’s great at slipping about unnoticed. Except, he’s really not.

Getting swung at by an irate ‘Risa’ and being accused of sleeping with a ‘Jane’ and having to hide behind the puny prophet shield that was Chuck, was a cracking good way of staying incognito. _Not_.

“I thought we had a ‘connection’,” Risa air-quotes, sarcasm dripping like sweat down her forehead and tight mouth. She storms off and Dean finally takes the opportunity to ask something.

“Hey Chuck, is… Cas still here?”

“Yeah,” the scruffy man laughs softly, arms crossed against his chest. He looks small, spurned. There’s something different about him, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. He focuses on that instead of the relief that threatens to liquefy his legs. “I don’t think Cas is going anywhere.”

The relief lingers and evolves into something else.

As Dean walks up creaking wooden steps to Cas’ cabin, he clamps down his racing heart and sweaty palms, and zeroes in on the one memory he has of a school camp. It was in a place much like this, with splinters, mud, and leeches all encased in green algae, hormones and irate teachers. Instead of the twanging hippy music emanating from the building, it had been _Right Said Fred_ and _Nirvana_. It was the first time he’d played Truth or Dare, and the first time he’d kissed someone outside family.

As he ascends the top stair, he wonders what these particular walls could say if they could talk.

Until they do.

He parts the beads strung across the doorframe to a scene with Cas and _girls_ , air thick with stale sex and pot. And he wants the walls to fucking stop talking.

The message is loud and clear.

“So in this way, we’re each a fragment of total perception – just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind. Now, the key to this total, shared perception – it’s um… it’s surprisingly physical. Oh—”

Cas casts his gaze towards him and in response Dean manages a flickered smile, putting up a mask while the rest of him is crumbling.

  
~

“I’m not gonna lie to you. Me and him--?” His older self speaks loudly to the clearing, loud enough that the great unwashed can hear him. His gun’s still smoking, a dead man still bleeding into the dirt, beer can slowly spilling from a slack dead hand, and he thrusts a hand out to point at Cas. “It’s a pretty messed-up situation we got going.”

Dean finally unfreezes and turns to look behind him at Cas, and is met with a resigned look halfway hidden under the stony cracks of the former angel’s face. It strikes him to realize that his brother wasn’t the only thing his future self had given up on.

The other Dean’s voice continues, just like his and it jars in his ears, sounds wrong wrong wrong. “But believe me. When you need to know something, you will know it.”

The way his older self said it was shrewd—to anyone else it would seem he is explaining his doppelganger. _Him._ But he’d pointed at _Cas_.

~

Cas hides his smiles behind downturned eyes and shadows in the cabin where they’re gathered as mortal men to take on the devil, and Dean is struck by how fallen he is and how much it’s his fault.

“What? I like past you!”

Future Dean looks darkly at Cas’ lopsided expression, and then looks at Dean with undisguised disgust and jealousy. He hopes he never turns into such an emotionally constipated prick.

So he forgets for the moment the fight that Sam and him are currently having – future self and wingless were fucking apocalyptic. He wonders what happened to leave Cas so broken. Himself, too.

Cas was a constant, someone he could love and be loved by. Surely that should have stopped things running to the ground.

But then he learns that Sam had said the big “Yes”, and that _Lucifer_ is wearing his baby brother to the prom. And all thoughts stop.

“We’ve got to kill him, Dean,” his future self was saying, brandishing the Colt to his temple. Like watching his future self kill his future brother – devil or not – is a fucking _great_ idea. “And you need to see it. The _whole_ damn thing, how bad it gets – so you can do it different.”

~

The car clutters along a moonlit stretch of potholes, the darkness leeching away all color.

“But instead, we become this.”

The steering wheel of the car rests loosely in Cas’ dirt-smudged fingers as he talks around half-swallowed pills and absinthe. There’s dirt under his nails and red marks on his wrists. This Cas is not his. Dean fights back against the sharp tug in his chest – there’s tears in there and what a fucking joke he’d look to cry over something that isn’t his – and finds the only way he can do so is to look at Cas.

He looks dead on at the fallen, sullied addict. His own tears pull back safely into his mask only when he looks at what Cas becomes in this brief maw of lucidity, and wonders not why. He looks at the thinly veiled rejection and pining and sees a familiar love. And accepts it as Cas.

His Cas.

No matter how much that hurts.

Cas speaks with unadorned sincerity. “The only thing I think we have left—Dean and me,” he clarifies, “is each other. If Dean says it’s time to go out in a blaze of glory, win or lose, so be it. But then…”

And he smiles easily at Dean, and Dean won’t mention how fucking terrifying that seems, that he can smile without _smiling_ , just bared teeth and a facsimile of expression. “That’s just how I roll.”

There’s electricity in the air – no angel-grace, just pure, lovely Cas. Dean gives him a smile.

They drive until the skyline of the city yawns into view, silhouetted against the morning sun that edges up the sleeping skeleton of high-rise buildings.

~~

Dean never liked talking to himself. Having himself solid and angry-looking apparently didn’t make this any better.

“What?” he snaps, because all he can smell is the stench of rotting flesh and dew-covered decay, and his future self’s friends are blindly following an undeserving leader. And Cas, beautiful, broken, more-than-friends Castiel is half high and half sober as if he knows that he won’t make it out alive, while his other self hasn’t even _noticed._            

“Take a look around you, man. This place should be white-hot with Croats. Where are they?”

“They cleared a path for us.” There’s a missing piece here, dangling overhead, out of reach. “Which means that this is…”

“A trap, exactly.”

“Well then, we can’t got through the front.”

“Oh, we’re not. They are.” There’s a hideous pause. “They’re the decoys. You and me—we’re going in through the back.”

Dean takes a moment. The way he says ‘they’ depersonalizes them, so it takes a second to hit him. He entertains a brief fantasy of punching himself in the face, and wants to throw up. He throws words instead, because little else has ever hurt him. “You mean you’re gonna feed your friends into a meat grinder? Cas too?”

His future self has the good grace to avert his eyes downwards. He wonders how many times he can stand to know that Cas dies before it can stop hurting.

“You want to use their deaths as a diversion?” And this isn’t about want, or revenge, or justice. It’s about ending it _all_. “Oh man, something is broken in you.”

Future Dean grits his teeth and does no more.

~

Dean doesn’t think he can ever forget the sound of staccato bullets pinging about the building. The shots light up its windows, flashes of pathetic light in a storm. Only one gun firing now, and he knows it’s war-worn Cas that’s still standing. At least the screams have stopped.

Mostly.

He hopes that Cas dies quick, wishes that something could be done, but nothing is ever that simple. A rapid fire of bullets, then—

The aching maw of silence swallows him. Encompasses him with sharp, piercing teeth.

His own breaths grow still, his chest pounding as he acknowledges this silence. He thinks about how he’d hung up on his own Cas to welcome silence and sleep, to be alone, and throws up in his mouth. He pushes on, hurting and angry until the next sound he hears is the snapping of his future self’s neck.

He realizes then that _he_ did this. Not his future self, not his other self. Him.

Dean allows himself to cry in front of the devil, his baby brother. A cockroach, only bigger, with his Sammy trapped inside.

“See you in five years, Dean,” says the devil, sadly.

Thunder crashes and he pulls his jacket towards his own heart.

He waits. Waits for Zachariah to pull him from this place, and it feels like hours when it can only be seconds.

“Dean.”

The voice is a little way away, and he turns. Blood-spattered and gunless, Castiel stands above his future self’s body.

His angel’s alive again.

“Dean.”

The voice is louder, half a question and half a demand. Dean swallows as Cas looks around, searching for danger even as his knees hit the grass. Blue eyes look straight through him, and he realizes with a sick jolt he cannot be seen. The devil it seems has played one last cruel card.

“Dean.”

He wants to tell Cas not to do that, not to shake his body like that – can’t he see he’s dead?

“Cas,” he says, but his voice is unheard.

Cas has his hand on Dean’s dead shoulder, like he could raise him again. “Dean.” He pulls his forehead to Dean’s and stares into sightless eyes.

There’s movement out of the corner of his eye. Croats, most likely. “Get out of there, you stupid son of a bitch.”

“Don’t,” whispers Castiel.

He lays down beside the body, wrapping his body around like they were not in the middle of fuckville and instead in a small cot bed. Alone and alive. He starts humming a tune, one that Dean can’t yet recognize, and he steps closer until he can hear his mumbled words.

“…hey Jude.”

Then Zachariah snatches him away.

~

His own Cas is whole and beautiful in the moonlight. He saves his ass with a smile that is soft and rare, one untainted by drugs.

For the first time in a long time, there is forgiveness in Dean Winchester’s heart.

He decides to make up with Sam, with Cas, but also with himself. He claps a hand to Cas’ shoulder, wanting to pull the angel close so he could feel him.

Because this Cas he feels he can tell the world to. He bites his tongue.

“We had an appointment,” Cas says.

And Dean thinks he loves him.


	25. Day 25- Gazing into each others’ eyes, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meta!Chapter. Crack of the lowest form.
> 
> Meta!Jensen, Meta!Jared and Meta!Misha are my own constructions based on what we learn in _The French Mistake_ (6x15). In my mind they do conventions just like our own cast. I kind of ran loose with the whole parallel universe thing, and technically I combine the two here (both meta!world and spn!world, which also contains a staggering amount of meta). And draw on our own universe for some inspiration. Any deviations from the actors therefore are safely attributed to them being their fictional, meta selves. Except Shatner. William Shatner is the same in every universe (and we love him for it).

“Becky Rosen, aka Samlicker81, why did you emphasize Dean and Castiel gazing into each others’ eyes?” [Conventioneers nod and murmur in agreement] “Were you hoping to introduce an element of homoeroticism, and if so, when will we likely see this relationship culminate or be confirmed?”

“Um… once again guys, I didn’t write the books, only published them so everyone could see them.” [throws arms up in a halfway cheer] “Woo! Seriously though? Ch-Carver Edlund wrote the Post-Hell books before he disappeared, so I can’t comment on his intentions for ‘Destiel’. Or its canonicity. Next question?” [she makes a coughing noise that sounds remarkably like ‘wincestforever’]

* * *

“Well how about that. You gotcha own language goin’ on there?”

“Huh? What?”

“…Nothin’. Carry on, just quit distractin’ each other. Purgatory’s a beast that doesn’t need no sleep, brother.”

* * *

“Why do Dean and Cas stare at each other so much? Or that the camera goes to Dean instead of Sam for a reaction shot of a Castiel joke? What’s that trying to show?”

[Mixed sounds from crowd. Someone caterwauls. Another hisses. Jared purrs and Jensen looks confused]

“I… don’t know if I understand that question. So I’m gonna say next?“

* * *

“Yes or no. Cas and Dean. Eye-fucking?”

“Well… [Laughs].There’s something goin’ on there, right? [in Cas’ voice, low and conspiratorial] We’re not meant to talk about it.”

[crowd laughs]

* * *

“He sounds dreamy.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And? Not like you’ve introduced me to him or anything.” She nudges his elbow.

“Fine. CAS?”

“Hello Dean.”

…

“Ching-wah Tsao duh liou mahng*! So that’s what it looks like.”

“What?”

“…Nothing. Much Intense. Very pining. Wow…”

* * *

“I ship Destiel!” announces William Shatner one day on Twitter to the confused masses of Trekkers.

The handful of those who read the books’ dubious online sequels cheered. The rest grumbled about Wincest and other homoerotic pairings needing more representation in mainstream media. The argument spirals until Orlando Jones takes this small storm in his hands and Tweets that Love is Love, and it should be celebrated that we can find love in all forms, whether it’s through prolonged eye contact or brotherly codependence.

Although some are still bitter.

* * *

“Quit it.”

“Quit what? I don’t understand.” Cas says, as Dean asks, “What, Sammy?”

“You’re making me feel dirty.”

“We’re not doing anything?”

Both remiss for answers, the angel and the hunter share another moment of profound eye contact.

Sam shakes his head and grips the steering wheel, a shower too far away. “Yeah, this time I’m gettin’ my own room.”

* * *

 

“Dean and Cas—“

[Padalecki wriggles his eyebrows and flicks his tongue out]

[Crowd cheers]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *frog-humping sonofabitch, from _Firefly_.
> 
> Sorry I kind of just wordvomited this over a piping hot coffee. And for the record I love all pairings, and like Orlando I love all that love, who express that love in every way they can. 
> 
> nohatekthnxbai


	26. Day 26- Getting Married, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does what it says on the tin (for once).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's happy. And there. I don't care if they're dead, we're getting a happy ending. And Meg never died. Shhhhh. 
> 
> Also, kinda plotless, just fluff. Sickening, really.

There was some argument as to who would walk up the aisle.

“I ain’t no chick” was Dean’s predictable yet trite argument, neatly inside a closeted nutshell of masculinity.

Since his own father was absent, Castiel argued that if anyone had any authority to give anyone away, it would be Sam to Dean.

“I doubt my father would be present,” he added in an aside.

Little did he know that Chuck Shurley, perhaps better known as God, would be hiding behind the mini-cheeseburgers and gardenia arrangement, roughly shaven and furtive with dark circles under his eyes. Chuck would later claim the free bar entranced him to the service, a strong argument except for the matter that he would not stay for a drink afterards. Even if the perhaps erroneously named free “bar” consisted of nothing more than several cases of beer and some cheap champagne sitting in ice bags in the trunk of a rusty blue Chevy.

Red ribbons draped across Bobby Singer’s Auto Salvage, pooling like blood on summer-baked soil and worming their silken way into cracks large enough to swallow cats’ tails. Neither salt nor iron made their way into the decorations, since the guest list was somewhat extensive. Not in size, but by eccentricity.

Kevin Tran’s ghostly strength rearranged the junkers under Linda Tran’s artistic eye, piling them high and wide to better the aesthetics of negative space, while Meg grinned maliciously behind a collection of spray cans. Spray painted rainbows covered nearly every rust bucket car, and glitter rested suspiciously in the filigree of the lacy tablecloths.

The old demon Cain assisted with the produce and food supply, roasting corn and baking honey bread to perfection. He wore his usual plain attire of cotton and slacks, but had for the occasion coiffed his silvered hair and beard. Beside him in an immaculate suit, Crowley sulked low from below a tray of honeycomb candies, angered that the older demon had won their little wager. Who would have seriously bet the puppy and the squirrel would actually get over their towering man-pain and upset? Not the old King, certainly. Much to his current distress.

Still, he snuck a honey toffee and found it some small comfort until he stumbled upon the fact that it made him unable to talk. Cain blinked sagely at the fuming demon, his ghostly and recently retrieved Collette delicately rolling her eyes behind him.

A few angels waited stoically around the edges; silent unblinking sentinels. Castiel was not entirely sure why they were here, but he greeted his brothers and sisters fondly enough, if a bit awkwardly.

Still, despite the amiable nature of the gathering, for safety the Winchesters kept some weapons on their person. Just to be sure.

Garth gifted just one of these weapons as the traditional ‘something old’. Three hundred and twenty million years old was the amber handle, resin polished and perfectly shaped for holding from its serving a thousand generations of Phoenicians. Dean strapped the stout silver knife to his ankle with a satisfied pat and made sure that his pant leg fell _just so._ When asked about it Garth just shrugged off something about Aphrodite and gave him a bone-crushing hug.

Something new was a pair of industrial-strength watches, given to Dean and Cas by Kevin via Ash. They were, he explained, the Swiss Army knives of wristwatches. With hidden lock picks, salt spray, razor wire, inbuilt EMF, GPS, and recorded exorcism, it was also able to contact all realms, from faerie to heaven, with a push of a button. And it could tell the time, which made it better than the one in Spy Kids.

Before the service and as he was dressing, Charlie gave to Cas something she’d borrowed. She blushed, embarrassed as he unwrapped cobalt blue tissue paper and wondered aloud how she had found it. His fingers brushed down the lapels, over where he remembered his and Hael's blood staining the tan cloth, and smiled gratefully.

She got a bone-crushing hug, too.

Something blue was not a gift to Dean or Cas, or for them both. Instead, it was a crumpled blue note pierced into Sam’s breast pocket by the quill of an unnaturally large golden feather. Only after reading the note did Sam notice it was the same color as Jess’ eyes, and swallowed around the tears. Instead, he perked himself up with the promise of a new mission, and dreams of his long lost love.

The music was their cue. Or rather, their guests humming loudly and obnoxiously the wedding march was their cue.

Straightening his lapels and running fingers through his eternally messy hair one final time, it was Claire Novak who took Castiel by the hand and, giving him a reassuring squeeze, led him outside to give him away -- officially, this time.

And then back in, since it turned out he’d forgotten his shoes. For the final touches, Claire placed a silver sixpence in the left one for luck, hiding her smile behind blue and blonde hair.

Dean was in a similar state of lateness, frozen on the threshold, Sam there gently soothing his last-minute jitters, ready to lead him down the aisle.

The guests rose as the two grooms walked down the aisle from opposite sides, and ended up together, in the middle.


	27. Day 27- Doing Something Sweet, General (Pushing Daisies xover)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Piemaker wakes pies and bakes the dead. 
> 
> Wait, scratch that - other way around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May be read without any _Pushing Daisies_ knowledge, as I have attempted to worldbuild from the roots to give y'all an idea. Let me know if it remains incomprehensible. 
> 
> Although, the author does highly recommend that you do watch _Pushing Daisies_ , not only for the pure visual sex of its aesthetics, but for wonderful characters and light, zany plots.

At this very moment in the town of North Thrush, young Dean Winchester was ten years, nine months, nine days and eight minutes old.

He looked out of the window of his shared room at Longborough School for Boys to study the exact moonlit spot of earth where three days, four hours and three minutes previously, his father had deposited him and his brother Sammy.

The sadness and dread that filled the boy were not so much a product of his temporary residence at the Longborough School, which had been founded by Social Darwinists with a common love for the novel _Lord of the Flies , _or even the current absence of his father. No – young Dean’s acute melancholy and general state of gloom arose from the fact that, exactly six years and ten minutes ago, a demon had killed his mother.

Around him, the air swelled with the general hubbub of his roommates winding down for the evening. Charlie Chambers and Victor Von Vincent squabbled viciously over a smuggled bread roll, and Eugene Mulchandani methodically stacked and restacked his various knickknacks and books around the two glass cages holding and separating his rabbit and snake.

Within the hour, a languid silence descended over these boys now wrapped up in bed, and all but one worn out. Sleep did not come to Dean, his mind racing and his heart beating painfully within the confines of his chest, so he decided to try something different. The soft, occasional protests of floorboards beneath his socked feet as he broke school curfew did not worry Dean. For even if he was observed by a teacher, any accumulating reprimand would be subsequently voided by his upcoming (and inescapable) relocation to another school. His father had told him _just one week_ , the hunting job to take mere days, and the school _too posh for good._

As it was, Dean Winchester passed through the various passageways of the building unobserved. Though he was unaware, this was due in part to a mix up in the school’s food ordering. Instead of milk, the delivery of one hundred bottles of whiskey meant the teachers, brave and foolhardy (for it was a school night) sacrificed their sobriety to assist this dilemma.

A small line of light peeking out from beneath the kitchen doors distracted young Dean’s wanderings. And after a moment of deliberation, he decided to investigate. Wary and suddenly stealthy, Dean peeped his peeper through the keyhole. What he saw made him both frown and relax, so he opened the doors.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dean asked without preamble, startling the boy inside, and closed the doors behind him with a click.

The boy’s mouth opened and closed several times silently. Aside from the addition of flour that clung to mousy black hair, Dean recognized the boy and his soulful eyes from science class.

“Dean.” He held out his hand.

The other boy stared at it for several awkward moments before blurting out, “I know.” Dean’s hand twitched. “Uh, I mean, Ned. I’m Ned.” The boy maneuvered himself to the other side of the work surface. As he studied Dean’s features, his face melted into a genuine, if somewhat practiced, smile. “Hi,” he finished.

Dean let his hand drop, noticing the way Ned’s shoulders relaxed when he did so. He let the silence smolder for a little while, not because he wanted to make Ned uncomfortable, but because he genuinely did not know what to do. His green eyes cast about the flour-coated benches and used tools, and with a gentle sniff, noted a wafting scent of apple and cinnamon.

“You baking something?” Upon Ned’s wild look, Dean hasted to add, “I won’t tell nobody. Promise. Not even Sa…”

A small whine distracted Dean from his ramblings, prompting him to look under the table. Color ran in Ned’s face and his right cheek split into a shy half-smile.

“That’s Digby,” Ned explained of the russet colored dog wrapped around a table leg, brown eyes currently staring up at Dean. The dog studied him with calmness, and as if noticing Dean’s reservations towards canines, did not propel himself forward into his space. Dean decided he liked Digby.

“Cool,” he smiled, and sat down.

“Do you like pie?”

For a moment, Dean blinked, transported through his mind’s eye to a time when his mother snuck him an extra piece of her pie when dad wasn’t looking. Ned, taking his silence as dissent, started nervously clearing up. An egg timer rang out, startling Dean out of his bittersweet memory.

Was he being offered pie? “Dude. I _love_ pie.”        

Ned stopped with his hands half curled around a mixing bowl and graced Dean with another shy smile. For the first time in a long time, Dean felt happiness rise from the pit of his belly to push his lips up into a beatific smile.

The scent of apples and cinnamon cascaded over them as the oven door opened and the pie was retrieved.

“You baked this all yourself?”

The piemaker shrugged. “It’s all yours,” said he, placing the tempting pie in front of Dean.

Dean frowned. “Aren’t you going to eat some too?” He patted the space beside him, and after a few careful moments, Ned sat down.

“I usually just let Digby eat it.”

“You can’t eat pie?”

“Not this one.”

“Why the hell bake it?”

Ned fixed his eyes on the steadily vanishing pie and in a small, halting voice he said, “My… mom used to make them.”

The pie in Dean’s throat stuck. Swallowing around it, he offered what he could. “She’d be proud of you. You’ve got real talent, Piemaker.” Dean paused, swallowing the last mouthful slowly, savoring it. The confession on his tongue made it taste impossibly sweeter. “My mom used to make them too.”

Ned looked up at him with those gentle, mournful eyes and offered a smile in return. “I bet she’d be proud of you too.”

In a surge of emotion, Dean forgot his mother had died, his father had left him, and kissed Ned’s cheek quickly and without forethought. Ned, who generally avoided touch, quickly melted from an initial look of abject shock into a smile. Dean, who generally avoided making connections, fell from a cloud of thoughtless kindness and into horror. Ned touched with his hand the place where Dean had touched, and though he refused Dean’s profuse apologies, both agreed to never talk of it again.

The next few days fell into a ritual for the boys. Ned would sneak down to the kitchens and shortly after Dean would join him. Dean had learned that Ned was touch starved – hence his acceptance of the kiss, but also afraid of touch for reasons he did not make apparent to Dean. Ned learned that Dean wanted to be a firefighter, but was afraid of fire for reasons he did not make apparent to the piemaker.

But Dean’s time at the Longborough School for Boys was coming to an end. Soon, him and Sammy would be whisked away to a new town, a new school, a new monster – but most importantly, away from his piemaker and friend.

On that last day, Dean paced restlessly through the corridors, the knowledge of his departure knotted uncomfortably around his belly. His sudden decision to go down to the kitchen early was, he told himself, to help Ned bake the pie that he so selfishly enjoyed – an assistance that, when previously offered, Ned had quite firmly denied. The door to the kitchen seemed heavier than normal, as if it knew of Dean’s trepidation, and he managed to open it only a crack, allowing him to view and assess the room unobserved.

A pile of rotted fruit sat chopped and skinned on the benchtop beside Ned’s pastry lined pie tin. The sight of fuzzy white and green mold startled him into inaction. Dean watched frozen and mute with astonishment as Ned carefully removed gloves from his hands and picked up the decomposing fruits one by one to deposit in their pie shell. The fruits did not remain in their decomposed state, for as Ned touched them, a small blue spark flew from finger to fruit, granting life to the dead things. Again and again, as if in rewind, skins tightened and gleamed, and flesh became alive once more. They fell into the piecrust ripe and wholesome, sparkling with the peak of life.

Dean watched this small miracle with a whirling mind. He blinked furiously and wondered what else Ned could make alive. Slowly he let the door fall those few inches closed once more, and walked away, forever leaving Ned to wonder where the boy called Dean had gone, and more importantly, why his only friend had left him.

 

In the present day, Dean Winchester was thirty-five years old, four months and one day old, when he found himself outside of a pie shop. Beside him, Castiel’s lank form was belted tightly onto the passenger seat. The reason for this secure strapping was to prop up the lank muscles of a dead body. That is, Dean had driven across several states with a friend who was very much deceased.

The facts were these.

Eleven hours, twenty-three minutes and six seconds ago Castiel, former angel of the lord and current wingless and almost-human companion of Dean Winchester, was murdered. The angel blade that ran through his chest was quick and biting. Upon witnessing this, a rather more metaphorical blade sliced through Dean’s heart.

The demon that ran the angel blade through Castiel’s heart, quick and biting, was now also dead. Except unlike Castiel, her body was left to decompose on the floor of a chic and up market (but unfortunately haunted) studio apartment in San Francisco. Her blood oozed sluggishly from the wound in her back made by Ruby’s knife in Dean’s righteous hand, to mingle with the thousand-dollar orange shag carpet below.

Dean, upon ending the demon’s life, had looked uncomprehending at Castiel’s lifeless body. Then he shook him by the shoulders, took his pulse, wondered if angels even had pulses, and splashed him with the only liquid he had on his person – whiskey. He removed the blade from Castiel’s chest, apologizing for the sting, and attempted to place the sword up his angel’s sleeve. Frustration doubled over as the metal fell out from where it would always apparate, thumping dully on the shag floor again and again. Dean shouted, cajoled and whispered until all that came were tears, thick, silencing and simple.

Indeed, the ‘job’, as Dean called it, had been simple. And, to many degrees up to but not including the sudden appearance of the demon and Castiel’s subsequent death, it was.

Dean had maneuvered Castiel’s dead, floppy weight into his 1967 Chevy Impala and hitched the seat back slightly to stop him slumping so slackly forwards. He arranged him to be comfortable, smoothed his lapels and kissed his cooling forehead. The black leather beneath Castiel’s fatal wound would doubtlessly stain rusty red – and yet, no matter how macabre, in the days that would pass Dean would not – and could not – imagine removing any part of his friend from his life.

Hours of black tarmac and asphalt rolled under the Impala’s wheels, the same scratchy cassette playing over and over. Dean drove without conscious direction until the sunless morning smudged a chalky pink horizon, over which laid the small yet bustling county of Papen. However poetic, the reason for Dean’s ascent into the yawning yet impossibly colorful city was random, for the memories of a boy called Ned, sweet apple pie and impossible magic were all but forgotten, chalked up to childish imagination.

Perhaps his subconscious, driven by a want of reanimation of his dearest friend and lover, had delivered him to Papen County. Perhaps it was Chuck himself who guided the hunter into this particular notion of salvation.

Unfortunately, the nature of bumping into the extraordinary boy called Ned in a world full of ordinary people was a statistical unlikelihood.

And yet, stopped as he was in front of the Pie Hole, the air smelling of apple and cinnamon just as it had twenty-four years ago, Dean suddenly remembered that fanciful time in Longborough School for Boys, and felt a frisson of hope.

The hope was enough to drive him to leave in his car Castiel’s body, which had for now (rather thankfully, if somewhat strangely) decided to forgo the usual decomposition and insalubrious disposition of the dead. Heavens knew Sammy had stunk that first time he had died in Cold Oak. Dean suspected either this was due to some latent angel mojo, or that even bacteria knew to stave off consuming a being who once had, burning with a million souls, very nearly consumed the world.

Dean pushed through the door and hoped – if not for the apparition of magic, then at least for some comfort breakfast.

What greeted him was five foot nothing of bright green and yellow.

“Hiya!” she chirped, “Welcome to the Pie Hole. Pick a booth and I’ll be over in a sex. Sec. Second.”

Dean, understandably dumbfounded by the way such an alarmingly vast positivity for an early morning could be packed inside such a tiny human being, did not notice her slip or awkward attempt to cover it. He took his cue from the beaming face and sat down in a red booth under a round window, feeling his grey and muted self sinking in a sea of primary colors.

Sobering were his thoughts as he stared at the menu, unseeing. He focused on the dry texture of paper under his shaking hands, fancying he could see the pockmarked ridges under swirling black ink. A delicate cough broke through his cloud and raised him from the depths.

Instead of the blonde, a brunette in a soft orange cardigan offered coffee. He blinked at her. She smiled warmly.

“Hi I’m Chuck. Can I get you something to eat, drink, or eat and drink?” At his continued silence, Chuck bent low, heavy under the confided knowledge that Olive – intimidated, though not visibly, by the appearance of the tall, handsome stranger, and embarrassed by a Freudian slip that slipped out after staring into the customer’s soulful green eyes – was now hiding under the coffee machine.

Pained by the thought of accidentally divulging her friend’s secret, Chuck continued with a whisper: “Olive can make you a latte?”

Dean listened to maybe half of this, feeling increasingly edgy about leaving Cas in the car. The weight of his death pressed suddenly and painfully. He noticed then that he was the only customer in the restaurant – this due to the earliness of the hour.

Suddenly Chuck was beside him, gently touching where his hand clutched the menu. “Oh, you don’t look fine at all. What’s happened?”

“I think...” Dean blinked, face stoic, and swallowed dryly. He weighed up the words screaming in his head and decided not to say them, just as they escaped his lips anyway. “My angel is dead.”

“We got a case?” piped a disembodied voice from below a bag of hazelnut coffee beans. She popped up and leaned over the counter with genuine sympathy etched on her pretty face. “Want me to holler Emerson?”

A plate of apple pie and ice cream appeared before him.

Dean’s eyes tracked up the steady hands that placed the porcelain plate on the table, to equally steady forearms, and to firm shoulders wrapped tightly in a black tee. They slid across the hunched frame to a flour-splattered grey apron and strong chest, then up to the vulnerable face of his impossibly tall server. Their eyes locked and Ned’s eyebrows quivered like sails on a ship. Dean was glad he wasn’t the only one sinking.

“Dean? Dean Winchester?” He asked in a small voice, with remarkably little surprise.

“Man, am I glad to see you.” And Dean did something quite remarkable. He apologised.

~~

The first thing that Ned said after hearing Dean’s story was, “I can’t.”

Chuck elbowed the piemaker in his side, causing him to unbalance into the trashcans beside the Impala, who sat parked in an alleyway near the _Pie Hole_. Righting himself, Ned shot her a betrayed look, and she raised her eyebrows. “You can at least give him a minute to say goodbye.”

“Hey, hey!” Dean said, forehead pinched. “We’re not talking about a minute here.”

“Exactly,” said Ned. “Doesn’t want a minute.”

“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” Chuck cocked her head, face sympathetic.

“There is no goodbye. Cas doesn’t get to die. End of story.” Dean huffed out a breath and scrubbed his face with his hands. “What do you even mean by ‘a minute’?”

Chuck and Ned shared a look.

“When you saw me bring fruit back to life, did you stick around after a minute?”

“No, I walked away.” Ned winced, and tried to hide it. Dean folded his arms over his chest. “I walked away because I saw you touching life into fruit and thought ‘I wonder what else he could bring back to life.’ I imagined you bringing my mom and everyone that mattered back.

“I imagined us all baking and eating pies together, Digby too, and being happy. I imagined what the world would think of you, what would happen if I brought you into my world and decided that you didn’t deserve that because you were just some kid. Some kid who woke the dead and baked pies to comfort himself of the fact.

“So yeah, I walked away from something nobody had no business sticking their nose into.”

Ned swallowed, eyes shining. “You were just a kid too.” Dean rolled his eyes and hugged his arms tighter to his body. Ned decided to explain. “I touch things once, they come to life. Even humans, as you rightly, if somewhat alarmingly, guessed. I touch them again, they’re dead again, forever.

“When you saw me with the fruit, what you apparently didn’t see was the freshly potted flowers behind me keel over after the minute was up. I didn’t see them either – normally the locked up fruit rots and I can use those the next day as they get thrown out and I bring those back to life... it’s a nice circle.

“A minute is the grace period. After that, keep it alive and nearby something else of equal value has to die. I-It’s a cosmic balance thing. Take it or leave it, a minute is all I’m willing to give you.”

Dean considered this. “What’s the cosmic equivalent of an angel?”

“Another human. Which is why I can’t do what you’re asking.”

Dean let out a dry laugh, the first that day. “I wasn’t meaning angel as... I mean an actual angel. Wingless, clueless, infuriating – but an angel, honest to gods. Halo and all.”

Both Chuck and Ned took in the angel’s form, dead in a wrinkled suit and backwards tie.

“Uh...”

“I know how it sounds.”

“W-well,” started Ned. “A city? An ocean?”

“A truck full of puppies and rainbows?” added Chuck.

“The concept of love?”

“Another angel?”

“Oprah?”

There’s silence.

“Look,” said Ned. “Even if angels exist – not saying they do or don’t – then there would need to be another angel around for the random proximity death thing to work. My ‘gift’ doesn’t exactly come with an instruction book, but even if I had the power to do it, killing an angel... that’s gotta be bad juju.”

“And all that you said about ‘not bringing Ned into your world’? Seems like you want to do the same thing your ten year old self wouldn’t.” Chuck looked at him sadly. “Your angel must really mean a lot to you.”

Dean said nothing.

Chuck and Ned exchanged a look and made as if to walk away. He stopped them.

“Wait. I’ve got an idea.”

~~

Ned paused with his finger poised an inch from Cas’ cheek.

“You’re sure this will work?”

“Positive.”

“Sure sure?”

Dean rolled his eyes to the pigeon-starred sky.

“And—?” Ned gesticulated vaguely.

“If they fall back on their word they’ll have me to answer to. Now,” Dean said, making an impatient gesture, “Go and do your... magic pokey thing.”

Ned’s fingertip made contact, sending a spark of blue light shimmering through Cas’ veins. A click-clack of heels on the pavement behind them; the sound of a drain being flushed; a sneeze in the distance.

The silence was deafening.

Chuck broke it. “Castiel?”

The voice that answered was breathless, and though it struck life into the three humans, it filled one of their hearts enough to burst. “Dean?”

His chest heaved and spasmed for want of air.

“Heya buddy,” smiled Dean, hands cradling the angel’s face. The angel frowned.

“What have you done?”

“You’re the sleepyhead who got himself knocked out mid-fight.” Dean smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Don’t. I know I died.” Wide blue eyes took in the Piemaker and the girl called Chuck. “What have you done?”

Ned checked his stopwatch, a small bead of sweat trickling down his temple. “A trade. In five... four... three...”

Exactly two seconds later, a thump sounded from behind them.

 

The facts were these:

Ned, having reservations on both his ability to revive an angel and the subsequent repercussions for doing so, fearful of a cosmic imbalance or even causing a rip in the space-time continuum the exact size of Belgium – the latter fear stemming from Olive’s collection of _Doctor Who_ – needed something to assuage his conscience before he could assist an old friend.

In the bowels of Heaven was caged the most foul and devious of angels. The deeds of this angel were unparalleled in their egocentricity and tyranny, wrecker and mutilator of a million angelic lives.

“Would this angel,” Dean had asked of Ned, using a more colorful lexicon and a rougher syntax than that which is able to be reproduced here, “Be worthy of a life exchange?”

Despite requiring more convincing than the word of a friend he had long believed abandoned him, Ned agreed to wait.

Contacting Heaven, Dean outlined the situation – avoiding certain particulars to protect Ned – and was convincing enough to have the angel, bound safely and made impotent, escorted by two guards to the outskirts of Papen County.

Truthfully, Heaven’s administration was glad for the excuse to get rid of their wily prisoner. The amount of magic used and the rising rudeness of his insults meant that most angels were weary to contain him. That his life should be exchanged for the most charismatic, hardy and altruistic of their siblings made the council pleased in their ruling.

They also agreed that the individual responsible for the execution of the prisoner would be forgiven and guaranteed a spot in Heaven.

Emerson Cod, private detective, friend and sometimes colleague of the Piemaker, agreed to escort the prisoner the rest of the way to _The Piehole_ so no other angels would be in proximity of Ned’s gift _._ He did so muttering about crazy people and resolved to later soothe his frustrations with his new luxuriant three-ply alpaca wool and a tea cosy knitting pattern.

The prisoner arrived in eight hours, forty-two minutes and three seconds. He was given a pie as consolation, though he did not eat it, much to Ned’s distress. Chuck provided him with a brief conciliatory service, and asked if he believed in an afterlife – to which he scoffed and indicated that he wished there to be none. He then growled at Digby, who growled back.

To Olive he composed a small limerick, having tasted her mocha blend and finding it wanting. It was at this that Ned was convinced of his evilness, and everyone else agreed.

Though the prisoner knew he was in Papen County not for hugs and puppies but for his execution, he was unaware of how he would give up this particular ghost. Before he could machinate his escape though, he was clubbed over the head by Dean Winchester and dragged out into the adjoining alleyway.

Two minutes and forty-two seconds later, Castiel breathed again.

Exactly one minute later, Metatron was dead.

The police that would later find him would deduce from the scruffiness of his clothes and the presence of food-waste from the adjoining restaurant that this John Doe was homeless and died of natural causes.

Castiel, having listened to this tale with a great deal of interest and questions, gave the Piemaker his thanks and respect.

Ned gave a shy smile and Dean rolled his eyes, and together they said:

“Eat your pie.”

It was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.


	28. Day 28 - Doing Something Hot, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel takes Dean to the hottest place very early on in their relationship.

Castiel takes Dean to the hottest place very early on in their relationship.

Granted, their relationship has not yet progressed beyond Dean jerking awake in a squeaky motel bed with the angel perched beside him, but it was there. A creepy, oh-please-don’t-turn-up-while-I’m-in-the-bathroom sort of thing, but Castiel’s eyes were always kind, even when he worried, and so Dean had gotten used to it. Eventually.

This evening he dreams of sandboxes and buffets and those little head-massage things. Because he dreams of these, and not of barely-there claws and teeth, of dark nondescript passages that Sammy creeps down and never re-emerges from, he isn’t surprised to open his eyes to Castiel’s.

Granted, the air punches from his lungs and his head swims – but that’s quite understandable, really, since this was his bed and he’s _just_ woken up. He smiles and blinks up at Castiel, eyes adjusting to the dim dawn to better understand that darkened face.

“Heya Cas,” he rasps, wincing. He shoots a look over at Sam, asleep on the twin, and wonders what stage of reality this was. If he’s still dreaming, his reality in a dream, or his dream a reality. Castiel pulled some serious _Inception_ shit on him, sometimes.

Carefully, he goes to remove the angel’s hand from his shoulder. Castiel is solid and doesn’t budge. Wild hair quirks to one side; he’s thinking, probably.

“You’re not afraid of me, Dean,” he murmurs, his voice a gravel road.

Dean frowns and sits up, the hand on his shoulder moving with him. “Um,” he says, because he’s not quite sure how to say it.

Because Cas frightens the fuck out of him sometimes, but Dean knows he’ll never have to be afraid of him. Don’t ask him how he knows this, or even if it’s true. It’s just what he thinks. Like even now, Cas looms like some scruffy gargoyle, his persistent hand a safe presence.

The hand tightens, and Dean licks his lips. Castiel’s eyes flutter downwards.

“It’s problematic.” He shifts somewhat, until they’re facing each other, the space scant between them, their legs brushing underneath blankets and clothes. Dean nods, because yeah, seals are breaking and morality’s never clear cut. There’s a glimmer of glitter on Castiel’s cheekbone though, and Dean’s imagining him healing some toddler who ate too much glue.

There’s a sigh, and Castiel moves closer. His other hand comes up to rest on his other shoulder, and Dean moves.

Literally, moves. Castiel is flying and there’s heat and fire and a cool ice void that grabs at the curry he’d inhaled last night. His ears pop as they swoop between sharp gales and undulating currents of electricity. Eventually, Dean’s aware his eyes are squeezed shut, so he opens them while unhooking his hands from Castiel’s shoulder blades.

He blinks, the light white, and pulls away so he isn’t clutching at Castiel like a cat who’s been threatened with the bath. He doesn’t quite let go, because there’s nothing under his feet, and there’s a distinct lack of gravity. Earth has gravity. This does not. Space does not, either.

He peers up at a golden face, floating hair black and gold, eyes blue and flashing gold, and sees behind the angel darkness. Not just black, but nothing. Eventually, small dots wink at him, here and there, and he becomes aware that he’s breathing.

“Hmmpg,” he says, the air tasting like barbequed steak. Because, _space._

“Yes Dean.”

“Breathing.” _We’re in space._

“I have the power to manipulate that,” is what Castiel says, but what Dean hears is, _I’m protecting you from exploding and care enough so I made it that you can still breathe._

He becomes aware that they are pivoting, slowly, aimlessly. An arm of golden light flares grabs at them, hot, flighty and textured like silk. They keep turning, adrift, and Dean stares at the wall of flame that broods and licks long hot tongues out beside them.

“Sun?”

Castiel’s voice is cool in his ear. “Yes.”

“Fuck. Fuck.”

Dean settles his arms around the angel in a facsimile of a hug. He hooks his chin on Castiel’s shoulder and stares into the sun. He blinks slowly. It’s fucking beautiful. Castiel holds his trembling body, strong arms supporting his waist and neck.

“Do you see me now, Dean?” he murmurs. “We are on the edge of it, of its photosphere. Even here the temperature is just over 7000 degrees Fahrenheit, but I could let the gravity pull us deeper into its plasma. I take the oxygen and wrap it around you, stop it from igniting your lungs. You are a shadow, an ant facing the sun. Are you afraid?”

Dean nods, and squeezes his eyes shut. He grips Castiel tightly, knowing he’ll keep him safe. It’s not quite what the angel means, but perhaps, what Castiel means isn’t what he wants. Like this is some loophole he’s found in an order from heaven.

He laughs, bitterly. “Are you afraid of me?”

Castiel’s lips brush his ear, damn near kissing him as he whispers like he doesn’t want to be overheard. “I... they’re afraid of us.”

They should be. Dean sticks his tongue out at the sun, because he can. They’re quiet for a little while, spinning the slow waltz while solar flares lick their sides. They drift into the darkness, towards the stars so cool and far away, but infernos in their own right. Dean keeps on breathing, sweat barely pricking his temple, still clinging to an angel.

“Safe,” murmurs Castiel, and holds him tight.


	29. Day 29 - On one of their birthdays, PG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breaking the rules a little bit here, since it’s neither Cas or Dean’s birthday. 
> 
> John Winchester, Vermont, 1984.  
> John Winchester, Kansas, 2014.

John Winchester stared at his pint and blew its foamy head, pretending it was candles on a cake. He scrubbed his hands through his graying stubble and wished for his sons to be happy.

He imagined Mary not dying. They would have had a chance at happiness then. Instead, Dean polished his shotguns for him, and fed a crying Sam, and refused to talk about the shadows that haunted him. Five fucking years old and forced to step into his mother’s heels. Not in _that_ way, at least.

John very carefully did not tense. There was something in the pub with him; he could taste a sudden ozone in the air, like thunderstorms.

The afternoon was clear.

He was casting about his head for monsters that smelled like ozone, hand carefully inching towards his revolver, when a voice greeted him.

“Happy birthday,” it said. The woman, _thing_ , was short, with black hair, blue eyes, and a sharp jaw. Her dress was conservative, buttoned up in its grays, but something strange in the design put him on edge. Perhaps it was the lack of shoulder pads, or her nude lips.

He blinked at her, wishing he hadn’t had that second pint. Or that third. “Am I at a disadvantage here?”

She smiled. “I believe so, Mr. Winchester. Would you like to see your wish, now?”

Her hand rested on his shoulder; he never saw her move.

He blinked, displaced. A television set glowed at him, flat as paper and wide as the Impala’s bonnet. There were no windows, only a single door; the bar was nowhere to be seen. He spun around, the _thing’s_ hand still on him. He drew his gun and pointed it at her face. She smiled, and jerked her head toward a couch. Finger on the trigger, he froze.

Laughter burst forth; proper belly laughs with crinkled eyes and a skewed sense of balance. The voices were deep, three battered men armed to the teeth. Sitting the closest, one had hair nearly to his broad shoulders, his fox-like eyes reflecting the screen. Something on-screen made him snicker, and for a minute, John saw Mary.

The illusion shattered itself when a beer was raised to his lips with hands too large. His arm was bandaged and there was a machete lying on the coffee table. The second man was sandy-haired, green-eyed and…

John turned to the _thing_. “Where am I, you bitch?”

“Your wish.” She raised both eyebrows, heedless of the gun he’d shoved under her jaw. “They’re happy.”

“They’re not my sons.”

She squeezed his shoulder, and he winced. “They are what they will become. I’m not perfect at reading human emotion, but I believe they are happy.”

They laughed again.

“Who’s the faggot, then?” he grunted, dragging his eyes over the relaxed form of the third man. His jeans were slung low over his hips, and his cheeks flushed as bright as his maroon hooded jacket. More worryingly, his legs were entwined with… well, he supposed that was Dean.

“My brother.”

“A monster? Will he harm them?”

“I’m not a monster, John Winchester.” 

“You’re not human.”

“No. You may call me Hannah.”

He wavered for a moment, and watched the men. They did not notice him. “They live, huh?”

Hannah did not answer, but she didn’t need to. His boys were safe. Happy was another matter.

“So the only time they can be happy is through some idiot box?”

Hannah frowned, pursing her lips. She nodded once, and transported them again.

A kettle whistled and John cast about the kitchen for some semblance of order. Bits of scrambled egg flew by his ear, flung by tongs and forks. Laughter bounced around the walls; three shotguns propped up a teddy bear. He looked at the men, older than he, and tried to catch the… _Sam’s_ eye.

John jerked forward, and smacked his nose into his beer.

“Fallin’ asleep there, guv?”

He goggled at the bartender, who was polishing a wine glass. Each corner of the room was empty; just him, just as he’d been before. No _thing,_ no scrambled egg, no television.

He stared into his pint, and wished his boys could be happy _today_.

 

 


	30. Day 30 - Doing Something Ridiculous, General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the year 2078, and aged!Dean does something ridiculous. Forever!young Castiel literally can't even. A story about sunflowers and acceptance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a year, we're all done! Wooo! Hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have :D
> 
> I honestly don’t know how I’m going to top the [flour baby story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1888956/chapters/4282125). Because that was ridiculous. I hop focalisers a bit here, I’m afraid. Once I started I couldn’t work out how to undo it. Hopefully it still works. And whelp, there is a death somewhere in here, so if that’s not your spot of tea perhaps you might like to read a different tale. 
> 
> I tried to think of the most ridiculous thing that could ever happen on the show, actions that would unravel 99% of complications. Um, so this might not seem in character, since it’s such a plot point and I swear the boys are canonically never maturing (growls in frustration at the one step forward two steps back approach the spn writers have regarding their character development). But, at bumfuck years old, I like to think Dean's grown up.

Dean dresses Castiel for the occasion. ~~~~

He rushes the bowtie, thinking that any moment Sam was going to maneuver his old bitchface #112 around the doorjamb and demand they hurried the fuck up. He doesn’t, because they’re meeting him there, but Dean hurries anyway.

The bowtie flops crooked, but Castiel doesn’t notice. “Want me to call anyone?” he suggests. “I could… Call in a favor?”

Dean shakes his head and smiles, whistling a jaunty tune. “All good.”

His shoes are too small when he toes them on whilst Castiel retrieves his cane. It used to belong to Death himself, and Dean leans on it heavily, gnarled fingers tight around the engraved skull.

“Are you sure you don’t want to eat?” Castiel frowns down at him, features strikingly youthful over his hunched and withered frame. Dean laughs, big sprawling lines bursting from the sides of his eyes.

“You kidding?”

In response, Castiel puts the passionfruit pie back into the fridge. He swoops around and fidgets as Dean fumbles with the keys.

“You haven’t yet eaten. I’m sure Sam won’t mind if we go to Biggersons?”

Dean pauses, key in the door. No, wrong one. He replaces it for a near identical key and the lock turns. “My arteries will mind. Do we have _anything_ organic in this place?”

Outside, the day is bright, the sun is shining, the birds are in their hundreds and the bees hum with joy. Castiel swings into the driver’s seat; Dean plops into the passenger, squinting even as he puts on his glasses.

Castiel notices this when he turns to reverse, and nearly drives them into the rhododendrons. “You’re wearing your glasses.”

“I’m blind as a fucking bat, Cas.”

They drive past a school; it’s recess and Dean watches a hundred yellow shirts dart along the grass like butterflies in a field. Very loud, screaming butterflies, but fragile all the same. He laughs as a child topples into a tree.

He points. “Good to see the kids playing, eh?”

Castiel tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “Indeed.”

“Look, there’s one on the road. Think she’s lost?”

“Dean, that’s a cat.”

“Oh. Then why the fuck’s it yellow?”

“I don’t believe it has a choice, Dean.”

Dean cocks an eyebrow at Castiel’s tone. “Sassy today, are we?”

Castiel sighs and apologizes. In response, Dean rests a gnarled hand on his angel’s thigh. The Impala takes a short cut and turns towards the boonies, cantering over a gravel road – one of the few left. Most roads were sealed, grey and flat as a river, but occasionally there’d be a dusty stretch more potholes than road. This was one of them.

They pull up to a crossroads and stop.

Castiel taps his fingers against the wheel, tugs at his collar. He’s feeling like someone poured him into his suit and he’d forgotten to say ‘when’. Eventually Dean sighs.

“Cas, there’s no traffic. You’re clear.”

Castiel swallows, a hollow sound, and drives on. They steer towards the dead heart of Lawrence, through rolling green fields, mossy pines, and lichen-marbled headstones.

He whispers, “Are you sure –”

Dean waves his hands expansively. “Sam doesn’t want us to be late.”

They halt at a traffic light. Suddenly, Dean gasps, “Wait!”

Castiel jumps. Quick as a shot – or perhaps more accurately, quicker than that decrepit form suggests – Dean rolls out of the door. The light turns green and horns blare.

Dean studies the flowers in front of him, and takes the time to count out his change. He totters back in, face obscured with sunflowers.

Startled, Castiel turns the engine and drives through the now-red light.

“Mom hated this shit,” Dean says, grinning up at the yellow blooms. “But dad would always give them to her. To annoy her, I guess. Sam remembers them, says it’s his earliest memory, the sunflowers in the compost. Course, that might have been ‘cause I pushed him in there. Mom told me _watch your brother_ and we were in the garden. Useless, he’s just there tottering about like he’s four sheets to the --”

“You’re not compost.”

Dean pokes at an unfurled flower, worrying it open petal by petal. He looks at his angel. “No, I’m not yet. You good, Cas?”

Castiel sighs, pulling them into the vacant lot. Almost vacant lot. There’s two other vehicles. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, feathers.”

“Your mom died before Sam could walk.”

“Eh? Oh, I suppose she did. I wonder… must have been some other time. Think I threw him in the compost? Man, I was a brat.”

Dean looks pensive, working out his memories, before he washes it away with a laugh. “Looks like the vicar’s planting some seed in the gardener.”

Castiel gapes, considers not leaving the car, then notices Dean isn’t beside him anymore. Instead, Dean ambles towards the entwined pair, where they were poorly hidden among the roots of a yew. Castiel’s eyes bulge and he rockets to Dean’s side.

“Slow poke,” Dean smirks, silver head butting Castiel’s shoulder. “Got the cake?”

Castiel swears and dashes back to the car.

He meets up with Dean and the blushing vicar. The vicar is stout, like a nugget, and worrying his lips is a single chipped tooth. Dean’s hands are laden, sunflowers in the crook of one arm, nestled over a wrapped present. He gives the latter to Sam.

The vicar coughs and looks about, dabbing lipstick from his mouth with a spotted handkerchief. “Shall we begin?”

Dean looks between those present. “Yeah. Cas, plonk the cake on Sam.”

Castiel did so, opening the Tupperware lid, a chocolate _Happy Birthday Sammy_ sprawled across the cream cheese icing. He frowns. “I forgot the knife.”

Dean clicks his tongue, and bends to retrieve his bowie. “Here.” He makes to give it to Castiel. “Wait.”

His knees click and crunch as he kneels. With shaking hands, cuts the cake himself. He slices one for Sam.

“Cake, Vicar?” The vicar impersonates a goldfish. “It’s carrot cake.”

“Um, thanks.”

Castiel takes his own slice, and Dean grunts around his. Dean finds the texture a little dry, and comments on it. He coaxes Castiel to take a bite. Castiel heaves.

“Too sweet? Baby Sammy would’ve loved it. Like it Sam?”

The man in the coffin does not reply.

A few birds hop around their feet, pecking up the dropped crumbs.

Castiel has a hard time imagining Sam in there. Dean doesn’t.

Unlike Dean, Castiel didn’t see Sam take his last breath, or catch his last words. He didn’t squeeze his hand, fragile with age, as he said goodbye. He remembers seeing Sam alive, a decrepit old hunter, smiling at them both with his eyes like sunflowers in the rain.

He remembers complaining about the rosemary that didn’t make it through spring, and Sam offering them his shovel to replace theirs, which had rusted over winter. He had just finished darning Sam’s socks.

The Winchesters don’t die.

Mary’s headstone watches him, and Dean notices. He licks the crumbs from his fingers and rustles the sunflowers in his arm.

“Hey. Think we should give one to Mom, for a laugh?”

Castiel takes a flower, his hands brushing Deans’. It quivers in his grasp, and his vision blurs. When he does not move, Dean cups his cheek, careful of the tears that dribbled over his thumb.

Castiel’s voice stutters and chokes, mouth stuck with carrot cake. “Why are we here, Dean?” He tugs at his hair.

“Why do you think?” he produces a party popper from his jacket, and pulls the string. _Bang._

Colored streamers float to the grass. “It’s not his birthday. It’s June.”

“My brother’s dead, love.” He says it lightly, and Castiel falls into his touch. “That ain’t gonna change.”

“D-don’t. Being ridiculous.” It seems so much so. Until now, he’d thought it an impossibility. That they could hunt clowns, dragons, chompers and tricksters, raise flour babies and float in outer space, but the most ridiculous thing that remained would be this; to let family go. Move on.

 _Impossible_.

The vicar coughs. “Shall we begin?”

They part, Dean leaning on his cane. On the street, someone laughs, and the wind carries it shrill and loud. At the sound of it, Dean’s lips play in a curve. The bible’s pages rustle in the breeze and the vicar inhales.

“Ah –ah. He hasn’t opened his present yet,” Dean interrupts, tapping at the parcel perched on the smooth wood, over where Sam’s legs must be. “Didn’t get yours that first time, so you get it now, you big ol’ baby. Happy first birthday, Sammy.”

Dean clears his throat and picks up the cake. He begins to sing,

 _“For he’s a squished marshmallow_ …”

Castiel joins in almost automatically.

After the first “ _and sausage on a bus,”_ the vicar does too.

They cheer three times and toss the cake into the grave. It splits on impact. Dean tosses his sunflowers down next, and they sprawl grey in the dark.

Castiel mutters again, “It’s June.” But when he watches Sam sink into the ground, it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s not sure what Dean’s mourning, beyond a stolen childhood. At least Sam’s not being salted and burned. Winchesters get put into the ground, because there’s always hope. They don’t _stay_ dead.

The machine stops, Sam resting at the bottom. He’s not dead. They should check the casket. Why didn’t they? Dean grasps his hand and he realizes he’s stepped forward.

“I should have stopped it.” Castiel whispers, and Dean almost thinks it’s the wind. His Castiel, so much like the elements. He grips his hand, squeezes it as tight as he can – which, admittedly, isn’t much.

Castiel blinks anyway. “Ow,” he lies.

The vicar sneezes, then apologizes.

Dean’s eyes glaze when the vicar reads that bit in the bible about the star and Mary and the presents. They don’t have that reading in theirs. Castiel had scoffed at the old Gideon’s and amended as much as he dared. He wished he hadn’t now.

The earth clutches and clings to Sam. Dean’s eyes shine wet.

“It’s like you always say – we’ll just see him on the flip side.”

The vicar nods farewell, his gardener hovering in the peripherals, and leaves them gazing at loose soil. Castiel bends and places his bruised sunflower to rest. He raises his face to the sky, blue as cyanide – not even a cloud – and lets the tears go.

“It’s a beautiful day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [x](http://attic-nights.tumblr.com/post/121548470923/authors-notes-for-doing-something-ridiculous).


End file.
